Stijn Kuppens makes the cello speak in ways that are at once intimate and boundary-breaking. After a career in classical music, he set out in 2018 on a new path as a composer, performer, and producer of his own work. Since then, he has been building a fascinating universe of sound layers, dialogues, and encounters, with the cello always at its core.

 

His music has taken him to the United States, Japan, and Brazil, and in 2019 he was invited to share his vision at the New Directions Cello Festival in Boston, with workshops at the Berklee College of Music. Today, he is also a co-organizer of the festival, contributing to a worldwide network that celebrates the creative power of the cello. His work is regularly featured in the media, including Belgium’s classical radio station Klara, and several of his releases have been included in the prestigious Spotify playlist Classical New Releases.

 

Each of Stijn’s albums tells a different story. Inner Cello (2019) laid the foundation: a solo album where he shares his inner cello with the listener. In Dialogues, he explores musical conversations with other voices, such as oboist Joris Van den Hauwe, violinist Hugh Desmond, pianist Kim Van den Brempt, and master improviser and flutist Stefan Bracaval. With pianist/composer Johan Hoogewijs, he ventured into pure improvisation in First Meeting, while in Desolate Drones he discovered new horizons with live electronics artist Benjamin Van Esser.

 

Other projects place the cello in unexpected contexts: Seven Miracles (2022), an ode to his hometown Leuven, brought him together with flamenco guitarist Myrddin, vocalist Anu Junnonen, accordionist Roel Van Camp, jazz drummer Gert-Jan Dreessen, and flutist Stefan Bracaval. A year later, his intense collaboration with jazz phenomenon Dreessen resulted in a brand-new duo album: Dialogues for Cello and Drums (2024), where the rhythmic and sonic possibilities of cello and percussion challenge and enrich one another.

 

The collaboration with Myrddin, guitarist and composer, now holds a special place in Stijn’s career. Beyond their powerful concerts, they are working on multiple recording projects that merge their musical worlds: deeply rooted in their own voices, yet open to each other’s imagination.

 

In 2025, in collaboration with kindred spirit and painter Nele Boudry, Stijn unveiled his most ambitious project to date: Layers, a cycle of seven sub-albums inspired by the fifteenth-century Leuven Chansonnier and the paintings of Dieric Bouts. Here, he weaves his cello together with the sounds of Myrddin (flamenco guitar), Helena Casella (voice), Tom Beets (recorder), Didier François (nyckelharpa), and Sofie Vanden Eynde (lute & theorbo). The collaboration culminated in an exhibition with live music, entitled Inspired by BOU.TS.

 

Following Stijn’s journey means discovering an artist who continually reinvents the cello: sometimes as an intimate diary, sometimes as a dialogue partner, sometimes as a soundscape where centuries-old tradition meets contemporary imagination.

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(credits photo background: Mies Cosemans)