Jean-Luc Fafchamps (Brussels, 1960) is a pianist and composer. He studied at the Mons Conservatory and at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve. Founding member of the Ensemble Ictus, he participates in numerous creations, both in the field of concert music, in large ensembles or in chamber music (creation of works by Lindberg, Reich, Aperghis, Mernier, Leroux, Harada, Francesconi, …) as well as in mixed experiments, in particular with dance (many creations with Rosas).

Initially working in the field of theater and dance (with Théâtre Impopulaire, Compagnie Bonté-Mossoux, etc.), his compositional work, gradually reoriented towards pure music, has been hailed by UNESCO’s Young Composers’ Forum (Attrition, for string octet) and earned him the Octave des Musiques Classiques 2006 and the Octave de la musique contemporaine in 2016. Ensemble Ictus, soloists from Ensemble InterContemporain, Musiques Nouvelles, Ensemble TM+ (Paris), Gageego (Sweden), UIL, the Danel Quartet, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Orchestre Philharmonique de Mulhouse, State Symphony Orchestra Novaja Russia, Calefax, Champs d’Action, Spectra, Aton’&Armide… have performed his works. They have been programmed at most international festivals: Présences (Paris), Ars Musica (Brussels), Vilnius, Nancy, Dijon, Warsaw, Budapest, Venice Biennale, Lima, Copenhagen, etc. He was composer-in-residence at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 2005-2006.

Jean-Luc Fafchamps first devoted himself to writing for various formations in which the piano played a central role (Dynamiques, for two pianos; Melencholia si..., for two pianos and two percussion instruments…), before his interest in non-tempered harmonies and timbral polyphony led him to other sound combinations: A garden, for wind quintet; Bryce, for clarinet quintet; Les désordres de Herr Zœbius, for string quartet). Since 2000, he has been working on a vast network of cycles – the Lettres Soufies – a manifesto for writing, stylistic openness as rhetoric and the use of analogical correspondences as a systemic foundation: 21 compositions to date, for various formations – small group, ensemble, orchestra, with or without electronics. His taste for paradoxical constructions and a multidirectional sense of synthesis are freely expressed. The final instalment of his piano triptych Back to… was the semi-finalist of the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition.

His works have been the subject of six monographic discs released by Sub Rosa (Attrition, 1993; Melencholia si…, 2003; WDGhZ2SA: a Six-letter Sufi Word, 2012; Back to…, 2013; YZ3Z2Z1S2, a Five-letter Sufi Word, 2013 (Snepvangers Award); Gentle Electronics, 2015; H1KhH2WM (Du Seuil), a Five-letter Sufi Word, 2018), a label for which he has also recorded piano works by Morton Feldman, Berio, Liszt, Dallapicolla, Bowles, Scelsi, … A monographic disc devoted to his music for small ensembles, …lignes…, was also released by Fuga Libera in 2008.

He has taught piano, chamber music and applied and interactive music composition. He teaches musical analysis at Arts² (Conservatoire de Mons).

Jean-Luc Fafchamps has been a member of the Académie Royale de Belgique since 2019.