Arranging

The arrangements and transcriptions are an important part of Laurent Beeckmans' musical activities. Almost all of his arrangements have been made on commission or for providing new repertoire for the music ensembles he is involved with. The range of the arrangements is very large : from single instrumental to big orchestral pieces, from scrupulously accurate transcriptions to imaginative paraphrases, and in every genre possible : classical, jazz, songs...

The main output in this field are two pianos transcriptions made for the Mahler Piano Duo, that specializes in performances of orchestral reductions. Among them, Les Biches by Poulenc, The Sea by Frank Bridge, Mahler's First Symphony, Bernstein's Overture to Candide, Respighi's two symphonic poems Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma. Further transcriptions were made jointly with Pieter Dhoore, namely Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Richard Strauss' Alpensinfonie.

For the purpose of the Pianofolies concerts, Laurent Beeckmans also arranged a bunch of pieces of a more festive character for ensemble of 4 pianos or 2 pianos 8 hands, such as Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Enesco's Romanian Rhapsody or Grainger's Handel in the Strand. In some arrangements of this kind, he added a group of 4 percussionists, like in the arrangement of Sensemayá by the mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas.

The conducting of the school string orchestra String for Europe lead him to arrange new suites of medium difficulty level for that body of instruments, such as Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie per Liuto (First Suite), Poulenc's Suite Française and Röntgen's Uit Neerlands Volksleven.

The collaboration with the thereminist Grégoire Blanc resulted in the creation of the Alba Septet and the need to provide companion pieces for this ensemble that was made primarily to perform the Fantasy for theremin, oboe, string quartet and piano by Martinů.

Out of the classical field, Laurent Beeckmans arranged also a huge series of songs of the famous Belgian singer Jacques Brel, that were sung by Sébastien Cools with various accompaniments : from piano to wind ensemble. He made also arrangements in a more jazz/pop style for the band Floris and the Flames and the saxophone ensemble Sax Rainbow.

Videos

Arrangement of Gershwin's Clap Yo' hands performed by Vox Anima and the Ensemble Orchestral de Bruxelles conducted by Romain Verbeeren

Piano duet arrangement of Svendsen's Norwegian Rhapsody No.2 performed by the Mahler Piano Duo

Grégoire Blanc performs the arrangement for theremin, clarinet and piano of Glière's Concerto for coloratura soprano

Floris and the Flames perform Capriccio 24, after Paganini's famous Caprice