Margaux Vranken, a great Belgian jazz hope
Margaux Vranken has varied and extensive musical training: classical training (piano and music theory), chorister at the Chœur des Jeunes de l'Opéra Royal de la Monnaie, and jazz piano at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.
In 2012, she founded the Pinto quartet, which creates bittersweet, delicate, bright and engaging jazz. The quartet won the Audience Prize at the 2014 Brussels Jazz Marathon, and critical and public acclaim at the international Mithra Jazz festival in Liège a year later. She also wrote the music for the feature film "Les Liberterres" (Lands for Freedom), released in Brussels in August 2015 and shown regularly in French-speaking countries.
In 2017, Margaux Vranken won a scholarship to the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. Across the ocean, she played with Joe Lovano, Danilo Pérez, Terri Lyne Carrington, and John Patitucci, her prestigious teachers.
Armed with degrees and talent, in 2019 she recorded her first album (released in 2020), Purpose, in a New York studio; it is like a kaleidoscope of all the encounters she had in the United States.
Today, the 30-year old pianist, composer and vocalist from Brussels is releasing her second album, Purpose, la suite, on Igloo Records, a historic Brussels label which uncovers contemporary jazz talents. Recorded at the Gaume Jazz Festival on 8 August 2021, this entire live album provides beautiful osmosis between the pianist and her 13 musicians from around the world.