Benjamin Glorieux is a cellist, composer and conductor. Born in Kortrijk, Belgium, he lives in the Flemish Ardennes.

Apart from his solo projects and performances, Benjamin is always looking to forge new alliances with musicians from various national and musical backgrounds. In 2018, he collaborated with artists like Hermine Deurloo, Anthony Romaniuk, Dick Van Der Harst, Rembrandt Frerichs, Lorenzo Gatto, and Tcha Limberger. A need for diversification is in Benjamin’s veins, as his wide-ranging encounters during the last decade show, whether with Marc Ribot, Liza Ferschtman, Johan Leysen, Dominic Seldis, Tineke Steenbrink, Kreng, Lore Binon, Karen Willems, Viviane De Muynck, director Fabrice Murgia, Nadar ensemble, dancer Nelle Hens, Zefiro Torna, Centre Henri Pousseur, or director Floor De Wit.

After catching the music bug from his first teacher Jan Van Kelst, Benjamin went on to study in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland with various cellists including Viviane Spanoghe, Roel Dieltiens, Jeroen Reuling, Wieland Kuijken, François Guye and Gary Hofmann, Artemis Quartett, Kronos Quartet, Hagen Quartett and Alban Berg Quartett and conductor Patrick Davin.

As a baroque cellist he played with Ausonia, Itinéraire Baroque (Ton Koopman), Les Agrémens, Clématis, Jan Van Hoecke, B’Rock, Il Gardellino, and Apsara, as well as playing contemporary cello with Champ d’Action, Ictus, Ensemble21, Abattoir Fermé, LOD.

Festivals and concert venues have looked to Benjamin to create unique, on-the-spot compositions within a specific theme. He has created improvisational work for Concertgebouw Brugge (‘Erbarme’), Festival van Vlaanderen Kortrijk (‘Bach Onder Stroom’), B-Classic Tongeren (Goldbergs Ghosts’), Ars Musica (‘Scheolmlyoo’), and others.  

Keen to help create or perform work by living composers, he worked with Dominique Pauwels, Joris Blanckaert, Sebastian Rivas, Daan Janssens, Christophe Guiraud, Martin Matalon, Thomas Smetryns, Stefan Hejdrowski and many others.

Benjamin is a laureate of the Belgium foundation VOCATIO, and was named ‘most promising young musician’ by Klara, the biggest Belgian classical radio station.

His album En blanc et noir, featuring work by Debussy, Janssens and Fafchamps (Penguin 2017) was awarded the ‘5 Diapasons’ by the eponymous magazine as well as an ‘Octave de la Musique’.

Benjamin founded a number of ensembles, including Maeterlinck Quartet (string quartet on gut strings for romantic repertoire) and Aton’&Armide (contemporary music). He conducted the chamber opera ‘L’Algerino in Italia’ (Joris Blanckaert), the famous ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ (Arnold Schönberg) and Luigi Nono’s modern masterpiece ‘Quando stanno morendo – Diario Polacco N°2’.

Thanks to two generous patrons Benjamin plays a Vuillaume ‘belge’ (around 1850) and an Ambroise De Comble (1758).