Liesa Van der Aa (°1986) is a composer, violinist, singer, director and actress. She was born and raised in the Brussels area and has been active in the Belgian art scene for more than 15 years.

Her work is situated within a polyphonic/multidisciplinary context that explores the boundaries between music, content, image and art.

ALBUMS
Liesa Van der Aa made her debut as a singer in the pop circuit in 2012 with her solo album, Troops. For Troops, she mixed only voice and violin with electronic sound effects, resulting in a bombastic and well-received album. For this album, she earned a nomination for Best Musician at the MIA's in 2012.

In 2014, she released her second album WOTH, a musical triptych based on the death ceremony in Ancient Egypt.

Her most recent album Easy Alice, a jazz album, had a parallel cinematic component with I Can't Go Back To Yesterday: an experimental crossover music film, following on from the conceptual music album and inspired by Alice in Wonderland and Nietzsche. The film won several awards worldwide.

Van der Aa is working on new music, to be released in 2025! 

ONE TRICK PONY
In addition to the pop circuit, Van der Aa set up a new contemporary music ensemble under the name One Trick Pony. It is a music laboratory that explores the boundaries between minimalist new music, baroque music and jazz. It focuses on the visualization of music and musicians on stage, in film…
Human abilities such as reason, motivation, and personal benefits pepper the Court of Choice trilogy. The first part PLAY unfolds as a tennis match for string quartet, which explores the birth of power, based on Hobbes' Leviathan. For this musical theatre performance, Liesa received a KLARA award in 2020 for 'most exciting contemporary music performance of the year'.

MUSIC FOR FILM
Composing music for film was a logical next step in Liesa's creative process. The collaboration with the Belgian director Gilles Coulier started with his short films and culminated in the feature film Cargo from 2017. Liesa's work for Cargo was awarded an Ensor for Best Soundtrack.
More recently, Liesa wrote music for the film Augure, Baloji's feature debut, and for All The Pretty Little Horses by Michalis Karakatsanis.

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© Tina Herbots