Liesa Van der Aa

Liesa Van der Aa has been an active force in the Belgian art scene as a violinist, singer,composer and actress, for over 15 years.

Liesa’s work is always made and shown in a splintered multi/polyphonic/schizophrenic - disciplinary context, balancing on narrative and surreal structures where content, image and music are put into one frame. She worked - or is currently working - with international directors/art houses as deSingel Internationale Kunstencampus, Toneelhuis, Kaaitheater, Handelsbeurs Concertzaal, M HKA, Concertgebouw Brugge, with contemporary ensembles as Ictus Ensemble Brussels, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop Berlin and theatre directors as Guy Cassiers and FC Bergman.

After her debut solo-album Troops - mixing her voice with sounds of the violin, adding sound effects and combining it all with a loop station to a bombastic and well-received end product - Liesa released her second album WOTH, a musical triptych based on the dead ceremony of the old Egyptian culture. Both projects came to live partly thanks to cult sound engineer Boris Wilsdorf (Berlin - Einsturzende Neubauten).

Always creating new sounds and music, Liesa released her third solo album Easy Alice in February 2020 in collaboration with the cream of the Belgian music scene including Niels Broos, Dries Laheye, Lander Gyselinck, Elisabeth De Loore and Baloji. To accompany the album, Van der Aa also created I Can’t Go Back To Yesterday, an experimental cross-over music film, with Belgian cinematographer David Williamson in charge of the images.  The film was selected and awarded at many film festivals, including Global Shorts, Tokyo International Short Film Festival and LA Fashion Festival 2020.

Aside from her solo projects, Liesa Van der Aa simultaneously developed a new music ensemble, One Trick Pony, a contemporary music laboratory that researches the connection between music, image and art, focusing on the visualisation of music and musicians, on stage, film and locations far outside the venue.  
After her monumental Weighing of the Heart (WOTH) and the stimulating expression of the bustle of the city in Autobahn Utopia, Liesa created Court of Choice, a triptych about the concept of power of which – in every performance – a different dimension is highlighted. The first two parts  were recently presented: Play is a musical tennis match in which one innocent bystander is thrust into the role of referee whereas the second part, Entrecôte, chooses a butcher’s shop as an arena for the whims of consumer and producer.

As a combination of all her passions, composing music for film was a logical step in Liesa’s creative process. Gilles Coulier took her on board for all his short movies, and their collaboration culminated in the 2017 feature film Cargo, which premiered at many festivals including Les Arcs European Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, London Film Festival, San Sebastian International Film Festival and Thessaloniki Film Festival. In 2018, Liesa’s work for Cargo was awarded with an Ensor for Best Soundtrack.
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More recently, Liesa also composed the score to David Williamson’s award-winning first feature short film Eva, to award-winning Greek filmmaker Michalis Konstantatos’ second feature and sophisticated thriller All The Pretty Little Horses and to Baloji's internationally acclaimed first feature Augure (winner New Voice Award of 2023 Cannes Film Festival).

Liesa is currently finalizing her original score New Beginnings, an artistic documentary by Isabelle Ingold and Vivianne Perelmuter and just started to work on Judith Colell's historical thriller Frontera.