Mathias Coppens (1988) is a Belgian pianist-composer based in Los Angeles, California. Recent engagements are a commission for the Royal Ballet of Birmingham, in collaboration with choreographer Miguel Altunaga, premiered in June 2021 at the Repertory Theatre in Birmingham. The piece will now go on tour, starting in November 2021 at Sadler's Wells, London. He was also commissioned by both the Belgian Spiegel String Quartet and the Desguin String Quartet, both works to be performed during the 21-22 saison. He works freelance as an orchestrator and arranger and has worked as assistant of Aaron Zigman ('The Notebook', 'Sex and the City', etc.)
He performs regularly as a pianist with London-based violinist Jens Lynen, as a lied-accompanist, in duo with soprano Laurence Servaes, with choir (Flemish Radio Choir), in different chamber music series (f.e. deFilharmonie) or dance productions (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui). As a pianist he played several times with orchestra (Tschaikovsky, Chopin, Beethoven, Gershwin and several Mozart concertos) and as a composer he wrote for some leading Belgian and Dutch ensembles/orchestras such as ‘I solisti del Vento’, Bl!ndman, Brussels Philharmonic, Asko-Schönberg ensemble, Atlas ensemble, Hermes Ensemble, Mosa Trio, Kugoni Trio, Casco Phil, Symphony Orchestra of Flanders and others. Some of his music was recorded at Capitol studios LA, Warner Brothers studios, East-West Studios, etc.
Mathias wrote the music for more than 20 films which were selected for numerous festivals across the USA and Europe.
He is the pianist and artistic leader of the ensembles deCompagnie and a founding member of Tetragonist. Both ensembles recorded an album: deCompagnie under the label Phaedra and TetraGonist recorded the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps of Messiaen (Aliud) which they played on the spot in a tent where the composer wrote the piece during the second world war. With his VZW ‘k Luister he is the artistic director of ‘The Piano Festival’, which had already two editions in Amuz, Antwerp. He is also co-founder of labsummerclass which had three editions (Germany, Italy and Portugal).
Mathias graduated with the highest distinction for piano and composition under the supervision of Levente Kende and Wim Henderickx at the conservatory in Antwerp and graduated in composition with ‘excellence’ at the conservatory of Amsterdam where his teachers were Willem Jeths and Wim Henderickx.
Mathias graduated at the famous screen scoring department of the University of Southern California where his professors were Bruce Broughton, Christopher Young, etc.
Mathias is currently living in Los Angeles. He is currently guest prof. at the conservatory of Antwerp where he gives masterclasses in music for film and video games. In the past he also taught harmony and improvisation at the Luca School of Arts, Campus Lemmens.