Frank Nuyts is an all-round composer with a solid reputation, whose music is played all around the globe. He feels at home in many genres and makes a point of introducing a lot of variety, loads of energy and a grand dose of humour into his work.
Frank Nuyts was born in Oostende in 1957. He studied percussion at the Ghent Conservatory and composition with Lucien Goethals at the Instituut voor Pyschoacoustica en Electronische Muziek (IPEM).
Around 1985 his style started veering towards post-modernism. From then on, elements of popular music are imbedded in his work. Having embraced the motoric ‘groove’ of popular music (eg. ‘Rastapasta’), his compositions remain nevertheless multi-layered, rhythmically complex and unashamedly virtuosic.. In 1989, together with Iris De Blaere, he sets up the cross-over band Hardscore, recording four CDs (eg. ‘Methane’, ‘Surf, Wind and Desire’, ‘Monkey Trial’) and undertaking international tours.
Since that time he has produced an extensive and varied oeuvre of Concertos (piano, marimba and cello), five Symphonies, 28 piano Sonatas, several vocal works and a varied list of chamber music. Collaborations with conductors (e.g. Raf De Keninck) and important writers such as Phillippe Blasband and Rosa Monteiro have led to a number of chamber operas: ‘Bekket’ for Leporello; ‘Middle East’ for LOD, ‘Tongval’, ‘Noite inquieta’, ‘Paternel’, ‘Chut!’ and ‘Cambio madre por moto’.
Stopped teaching composition at School of Arts Ghent in 2016. Since then a wide variety of works were composed in all genres, from solo pieces to orchestra.
In 2014, the Hardscore band was rebooted, with visuals by various young video artists, which lead to ‘Carbon fixation’ (2015) commissioned by De Bijloke Arts Centre. Together with Iris De Blaere he founded the new festival ‘En Avant Mars’ for the Music Centre De Bijloke in Ghent.
Founded in 2017 a second band ‘Beat Love Oracle’. 4 Cd’s were released within the label àMarxe. The 4th one, Radical Risk, was with the American pianist Liang-yu Wang.
Stopped teaching composition at School of Arts Ghent in 2016. Since then he continued to compose in a wide variety of genres, ranging from long solo pieces to orchestra.
Recently he composed three long songs cycles (two of these with lyrics by Jelle Dierickx). A close cooperation with Ben Haemhouts and Casco Phil lead to the performance of several largescale pieces (e.g. ‘Tanstaafl’ and ‘Zappropriations’). He also composed pieces for several soloists: Piet Van Bockstal (oboe), Stef Van Vynckt (harp), Florian Peelman (alto), Maximlilian Lohse (violin) …
Winner of the first Sabam Awards for classical music in 2013.