About us
The Erämaa Trio was founded in 2016 by three musicians who graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the Hogeschool Gent in contemporary music, with the ensembles Ictus and Spectra, and in historically informed performance.
Our trio also works with other musicians, and Erämaa Trio morphs into Erämaa Ensemble developing a repertoire with voice and other instruments as well as live electronic / live video repertoire. This ensemble is resolutely oriented towards the music of the 20th and 21st centuries and try to include the different styles that this music comprises in order to give the public a view as wide as possible on the diversity of today’s music.
In November 2017, the Erämaa Trio won first prize at the Léopold Bellan international competition in France. The trio is recognised by Art&Vie and supported by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.
Erämaa performs regularly at festivals and venues such as the LOOP Festival, the Belgian Music Days, the Royal Academy of Belgium, the Royal Conservatory of Brussels,…. and frequently plays in Belgium, The Netherlands, France and Japan.
From 2023 onwards, Erämaa is an Artist in Residence in partnership with the Forum de la Création Musicale in Belgium.
Musicians
Cédric DE BRUYCKER_
Cédric De Bruycker started to study the clarinet at the academy of Arlon with M. Sosson.
He then continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with R. Van Spaendonck, J-M. Fessard and N. Lefèvre and finished with the highest distinction.
Passionate about contemporary music, he graduated from the Conservatory of Ghent specialising in contemporary music with the ensembles Ictus and Spectra.
He participated in masterclasses with Pascal Moragues (CNSM Paris), Julien Hervé (Rotterdam Philharmonic),… as well as Shizuyo Oka (ensemble Recherche) and Suzanne Stephens for the contemporary repertoire.
He plays in ensembles such as Spectra, Musiques Nouvelles and Sturm und Klang and is also a member of the clarinet quartet « Clarnival » as well as the trio Erämaa (violin, clarinet and piano) specialising in the contemporary repertoire.
With these ensembles he has participated in various festivals in Belgium and abroad (France, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Canada) and has premiered several pieces by contemporary composers.
Akiko OKAWA_
Born in Tokyo, Japan. Akiko is Belgium-based Violinist and Violist working in early to contemporary music. She also specializes in historically informed performance with period instruments, especially from renaissance to early romantic repertoire.
Since 2015, she has joined the Jeune Orchestre de l’Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes in France, and has played under the direction of numerous conductors and soloists such as Amandine Beyer, William Christie, Laurence Equilbey, Philippe Herreweghe, Marc Minkowski and Hervé Niquet. She is an academist in the Collegium Vocale Gent as a Viola player since 2020, also performing with many Baroque Orchestras in Belgium and The Netherlands. In the contemporary music scene, she is an active musician playing with several ensembles such as the Ensemble 21, the Ensemble Hopper, Tiptoe Company and Down the Rabbit Hole. In 2018, she has worked with the ICTUS Ensemble as an extra violinist for the creation of opera “Der verschwundene Hochzeiter” by Klaus Lang. She participated in the 11th Impuls International Academy for Contemporary Music in Graz and performed under the direction of Lars Mlekusch and Peter Rundel.
She studied Violin with Reiko Kusano, Yoshiko Nishio, Shizuko Ishii, Vincent Hepp and Véronique Bogaerts, Baroque Violin with Alessandro Moccia and Joanna Huszcza, Viola with Nobuo Okada and Paul De Clerck.
Website: www.akikookawa.com
Quentin MEURISSE_
Quentin Meurisse was born in Paris in 1990. He holds a master’s degree in piano and a master’s degree in didactics at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and an advanced master’s degree in contemporary music at the conservatory of Ghent.
He collaborates with many actors of contemporary music such as the ensemble SPECTRA, the Ictus ensemble, the Ensemble 21, Down the Rabbit Hole and the Hopper ensemble, as well as with the Antwerp Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he has performed internationally, taking part in major events such as the Présence festival (Radio France), Ars Musica (Belgium), the Walloon Festival (Belgium), the LOOP Festival (Belgium), IZLOG (Croatia), etc…
He is a laureate of international competitions such as the Leopold Bellan Competition, the Boris Lyatoshinsky competition and the Blüthner competition. He is one of the founding members of the ensemble Erämaa which specialises in contemporary music and has performed in France, Belgium and Japan.
He has also been involved in interdisciplinary projects mixing music and dance (Project R.E.A.C.H and Collabs, MACHA company) or music and circus (LATTERATERAL company).
He is professor of piano and Computer Music at the conservatory of Châlons-en-Champagne and in the Centre National des Arts du Cirque. He was formerly Live electronics guest professor at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.
