IN 1988 I  traveled for the first time to India and got really smashed with its musical wealth.
Confronted with all these sound colors I got the inspiration of creating something with it.
I literally got submerged in this "ganasagaram", this ocean of music.
I wanted to compose music with these colors and combine it with the flavors of European music,
by means of creating a small orchestra, consisting of Indian and European classical musicians.


 

 

Satyajit Ray

A really lucky event was to be introduced in 1990  to one of India's greatest film directors: Mr. Satyajit Ray.(1921 -1992 )
He was a erudite artist and well informed about European and Asian culture, so a fruitful  discussion was to be expected.
I  explained  him  my ideas about my music project, asking him if he thought it was feasible.
To my relieve  he thought my ideas were excellent  if  supported by a theoretical research project.
As it were my early days in India, my knowledge about Indian  music scene was rather obscure....
So, armed with mr. Rays advise I set out to do my own "thing".......


 

 

The Indian Music Project
  I created  a "plan de campaign" for my theoretical research,  setting all the parameters
I needed to investigate and started roaming  the subcontinent  (dealing with subjects as:
musical instruments, notations, forms, musicians, art critics, musicologists,  different languages etc.).
By 1992 the study project flourished, and  got included in the Cultural Treaty between Belgium/Flanders and India.
The project was labeled:   "Indian Music Project".
With  financial and logistical  help of Belgian and Indian authorities,  results were obtained much faster and in 1995
I  presented  a blue-print of a multi-cultural chamber orchestra:
the "Rajhans Orchestra"
Sadly a few years later Satyajit Ray demised, unabling me to reveal him  the results of my project.

 

Current research
Next to the work on instruments and musical forms is the translating of Indian music,
and the research for music connected with India.

A new "star" which I recently discovered ,
surely through the undiminishing promotion of a  Indian diplomat mr. Sarvojit Chakravarti,
 was the music of
Rabindranath Tagore.( 1861 - 1941 )

Equally, I am translating  and arranging  songs of rebel poet and composer
Kazi Nazrul Islam ( 1899 - 1976 )

some other projects.....

"General and Imperial Ostend East India Company" 1723,

"Music around the Mahatma Gandhi" ( 1869 - 1947 )

the "Indian Army in Flanders Fields" ( 1914-1918 )