Conducting

Besides his pianistic activities, Laurent Beeckmans has always been involved in orchestral music, both as a performer and as a conductor. He started conducting small ensembles such as Strings for Europe, the Brussels' European School string orchestra, which gave many concerts with a richly varied repertoire, culminating in the performance of Poulenc's Organ Concerto with the organist Mithra van Eenhooge in Bruges for the Festival Oorverblindend.

He further conducted the Camerata orchestra of Linkebeek (with Tchaikovsky's First Symphony among other pieces) and the youth orchestra Melomania. In 2018, he conducted the Ensemble Orchestral de Bruxelles during a festive concert at Bozar in Brussels.

As it is the case with his pianistic repertoire, Laurent Beeckmans likes to approach pieces from the English and nordic repertoire. In the last years, in conducted pieces that are seldom heard in Belgium such as Svendsen's Norwegian Rhapsody No.2, Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite and Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Videos

Rachmaninov's Vocalise performed by Grégoire Blanc and the Ensemble Orchestral de Bruxelles (Bozar, Brussels, 2018)

Strings for Europe performing excerpts from Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie per Liuto (Bouvignes, Belgium, 2016)

Melomania youth orchestra performing Elgar's Enigma Variations (Brussels, 2019)