Let’s not reduce Bryce Dessner to ‘guitarist with The National’. In recent years, he has composed an impressive oeuvre as an art music composer: from his sinfonietta for electric guitar St. Carolyn by the Sea, to a ‘boxing match’ of a violin concerto for Pekka Kuusisto. These are – not unimportantly – the two works by Dessner that the Brussels Philharmonic will perform during the Ars Musica festival.

Although the main thing to look forward to is the Belgian premiere of a brand new piano concerto dedicated to Alice Sara Ott, who also takes to the keys in Brussels.