Citadelic festival 2024 

MAY 30 - 19H30

showcase competition Citadelic @ Ensemble
    band 2:  Damien Brassart Quartet (BE)
           oriental jazz

The Damien Brassart Quartet uses jazz and improvisation as keys to approach various musical styles, as a way to explore their musicality, and as a gateway to greater freedom. The musicians like to emphasize the creative process and the state of connection that arises from it. This relationship aesthetic, enhanced by improvisation, elevates the musical experience and makes it possible to achieve states of trance and ecstasy, like a ritual performance where musicians and audience share the intensity of the moment.

A piece of music is a living organism; it is impossible to play it identically twice in a row. The mood changes depending on the day, but the DNA remains the same. Come discover what the day brings with this fresh jazz quartet with a touch of the Orient.

Damien Brassart begins learning African and Afro-Cuban percussion at the age of 16. After four years of experimentation, he starts learning various wind instruments (Irish flutes, oboe, English horn) at the age of 20.

In 2012, he founds the nonprofit organization La couleur des sons to promote and develop all forms of art and music therapy. Intrigued by the power of sounds, both emotionally and physically, Damien writes a thesis in anthropology (ULB) on trance, ecstasy, and the connections between jazz and Sufi music. He continues to explore this dimension of sound through various musical projects, internships, and encounters (particularly with dance and theater), as well as by specializing in music therapy. Ultimately, he works part-time as a music therapist in a psychiatric hospital for seven years.

Meanwhile, Damien begins learning the soprano saxophone as a self-taught musician and decides several years later to attend the Royal Conservatory of Brussels to study jazz and improvisation with, among others, Fabrice Alleman and Manu Hermia.

OTHER CONCERTS MAY 30

with the marvelous support of De Vlaamse Gemeenschap and de Stad Gent