Lise Bruyneel
Lise Bruyneel is I SOLISTI Artist in Residence from 1 january 2026 until 1 january 2030. She works in dialogue between visual art and music. She studied cello (CRMB Brussels, UdK Berlin) and art history (ULB Brussels, Roma III Rome). She first worked as a cellist, then as an opera dramaturge and visual dramaturge in the opera world (Staatsoper Berlin, Nationale Opera Amsterdam, and several years at the Opéra de Paris with Gerard Mortier).
LISE BRUYNEEL © Julien Lambert
In 2009, she founded la fabrique des regards, with the idea of reflecting on sounds, movements and images in different ways and for different institutions, as a visual dramaturge and graphic designer (Opéra de Paris, Concertgebouw Brugge, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Bozar, Opéra du Rhin, Festival 20-21 Leuven, Silbersee Amsterdam, Ruhrtriennale).
She has also created and organised unconventional visual art projects, often out on the streets (EXI(S)T, échappées belles in Brussels, Dance! in Brussels, Biennale du Condroz, Dans tes brumes at Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris). Since 2013, Lise has been experimenting as a classical VJ with new paths between visual arts and music, mixing live videos during classical concerts. Her personal style combines different types of images that are projected onto materials with a soul, such as gauze cloths, curtains or metallic foils, but also onto walls and floors. The result is not a narrative film but a visual accompaniment to the music, a musical interpretation in images.
Projects around Babylon with Cindy Castillo (À contre-courants, Festival Musiq’3, Flagey, 2014), time perception with the Nederlands Kamerkoor (The Time stands still, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t Ij, Vredenburg, Schouwburg Groningen, Festival Wonderfeel etc., 2014), the last words of Jesus and Socrates in music with Jan Michiels (Laatste woorden, Schouwburg Leuven, Festival 20-21, 2019), a transgender opera by Renske Vrolijk created by the Nederlands Kamerkoor, in collaboration with Smith (#UNCUT, Netherlands, 2022), an augmented piano recital remembering Proust with Jan Michiels (ISOLT, Singel, Concertgebouw, Festival van Vlaanderen Gent 2022),the theatre play Ces enfants-là (Brussels, Théâtre national, 2023) Schoenberg’s vision on Pelleas und Melisande (Leuven with Het collectief, 2023, Klarafestival with the Brussels Philharmonic 2024). Ongoing tour with an interpretation of Kurtag’s Kafka-Fragmente with drawings of Kafka (Leuven, 2022, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht and Ghent 2024). Nenia with Katharina Smets and Revue Blanche (Klarafestival, 2025), Between two lights with Nederlands Kamerkoor (Belgium and the Netherlands, 2025), C#2 extended for Le festivals de Wallonie (2025), Things lived and dreamt surrounding music by Janáček and Suk with pianist Severin von Eckardstein (creation in the fall of 2025).