Site design by MostBasicSites

Arne (°1971) started taking music lessons at age 8, piano lessons a few years later. A French radio program introduced him to Duke Ellington when he was 12; unfortunately, there was no one around to guide him through the jazz jungle. So he studied classical piano music instead of jazz, deciphered D7#9 on his own, played in a local big band as a teenager, and went to university to study Germanic languages - playing jazz in bars at night.

At 22, he enrolled in the new jazz department of the Leuven Lemmens Institute, where he took classes from Bert Joris, Frank Vaganée, Ron van Rossum, Philippe Aerts and Dré Pallemaerts, along with classical harmony and solfeggio. Jazz history became a specialty. Meanwhile, he started playing with more seasoned jazz players.

After teaching at the Lemmens Institute for a while, he relocated to Hasselt, where he now teaches at a music secondary school (solfeggio, jazz piano, ear training) and at the conservatory (jazz piano and jazz history).

Arne has worked with Andy Declerck, Henk de Laat, André Donni, Tony Gyselinck, Marc Godfroid, Robert Jeanne, Sabine Kühlich, Andres Liefsoens, Jan Muës, Carlo Nardozza, Roderik Povel, Iris Romen, Richard Rousselet, Joep van Leeuwen, Flor Van Leugenhaeghe, Luc Vanden Bosch, Herman Vanspauwen, Lieven Venken, Rony Verbiest, Yvonne Walter... His pianistic influences include Wynton Kelly, John Lewis, Red Garland, Herbie Hancock.

Apart from being a pianist, he also works as a composer, arranger and accompanist. Meanwhile, his passion for jazz history keeps on growing - taking him to national television talking and playing (about) Billie Holiday.