Inspired by Brussels and its multilingual vocality, Christophe Chassol has created a visually stimulating sonic portrait of the city.
CHOU, produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts, is a mesmerizing total experience with video and musicians.
Chassol sparked a revolution in contemporary jazz and is known around the world through his albums, concerts, and collaborations with artists such as Frank Ocean and Solange. In the manner of an optical effect, he harmonizes melodies and rhythms, blending extraordinarily complex chord variations into sound combinations of unimaginable fluidity. This complexity is cloaked by seemingly effortless technique and unrestrained elegance, revealing the virtuosity, poetry, and musicality of everyday sounds and spoken language.
CHOU merges the image and sound archive of Brussels into a polyphonic portrait of the city.

French pianist, composer and arranger Christophe Chassol utilizes unique composition methods to create music equally suited for the big screen and the concert hall.
His compositions are based on original film footage captured during his travels – in New Orleans, India, Martinique, Paris and Tokyo. This footage serves as a catalyst for musical sequences created with piano, keyboards, percussion as well as vocal and instrumental arrangements that harmonize the sights, sounds and colors of the films. Chassol calls this method “ultrascoring.”
Born in 1976, Christophe Chassol entered music academy at age 4 and studied there for 16 years. He secured a grant from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where he graduated in 2002. For the next 15 years, he composed for cinema, television and advertising. In subsequent years he performed regularly with French pop artists such as the band Phoenix and Sébastien Tellier.
More recently, he has worked with American singers Frank Ocean and Solange, contributing to their respective albums. Chassol is also active in contemporary art, collaborating with artists Sophie Calle, Laurie Anderson and Xavier Veilhan.
Chassol has four albums/films to his credit: “Nola Chérie”, using footage shot in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; “Indiamore”, a journey on the banks of the Ganges in India; “Big Sun”, a bewitching tribute to his native island of Martinique; “Ludi”, musical film inspired by the novel “The game of glass beads” by Hermann Hesse.

written, composed and directed by Christophe Chassol
with Jean-Pierre Muller, Alice Foccroulle, Inno JP, Tisso the Plug, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Martha Da’ro, Jean-Philippe and Valentin Feiss, Aristide d’Agostino, Jean-Louis Hénart, Emmanuel André, Isabelle Leonard
executive production: Boris Memmi, Géraldine Noël for Ludi Magister
commissioned and produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts and Ancienne Belgique
in coproduction with Ludi Magister
thanks to: De Munt/La Monnaie, L’Archiduc, Wave Lab Studio, Hotel Warwick, Ville de Bruxelles/Stad Brussel

In Florence, the event is organized in collaboration with Lo schermo dell’arte

[photo: Françoise Robert]