Mattias Devriendt

Mattias Devriendt is a Belgian pianist and composer. He is known for his cinematic and minimalist music and for his recumbent concerts, where the audience lies around the grand piano and attends the concerts as part of a conscious listening concept. In addition to his solo work, he is active as a member of the indie band Monserey and editorial board member of the cultural magazine Still magazine.

Devriendt began playing piano at the age of nine and developed an early preference for composing his own work. His musical influences include Radiohead, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Nicolás Jaar, The Album Leaf, Nils Frahm and Jóhann Jóhannsson.
He is keyboardist in the band Monserey. In 2022, he also started a solo career as a pianist.

Devriendt built his solo career around a series of recumbent concerts.

According to Devriendt, the recumbent concert is not a comfort experience but a listening concept intended to combine physical relaxation with heightened attention. Through the recumbent position, the traditional stage feeling disappears and an equal relationship is created between performer and listener. The concert form invites stillness and non-analytical listening in which silence and time play a central role.
Within his recumbent concerts, Devriendt uses punctuation marks as a recurring element. In an interview, he explained that the comma stands for a pause, an invitation to stop for a moment without it stopping.