Pieter Baert

Pieter Baert enjoyed a great education in classical music, and started improvising and exploring harmony at a very young age. In 1997, he was the first jazzpianist to graduate from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Before, there existed no education in jazz in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. He was formed by Kris Defoort, Eric Vermeulen, Diederik Wissels, among others. Since, he has played all over the country with his trio and quartet, for which he composed most of the music. He improvised the KlaRa (flemish classic radio)-tunes, founded the electro-bigband Jambangle together with Mattias Laga (Olla Vogala, Jaune Toujours), played with jazzmen like Jeroen Van Herzeele, Teun Verbruggen, Toine Thys, as well as arabic musicians like Osama Abdulrasol (Elftwelf Trio). Also being a steady member of the rapidly growing salsa-formation SonBacan, Pieter has built up the reputation among musicians from all over the world that he can sit in with any group - latin, jazz or anything in between.