Tristan Driessens is a Belgian oud player and composer active mainly in the field of Ottoman music, Early Music as well as modal jazz. He studied in Istanbul under the guidance of Necati Çelik and Yurdal Tokcan. After finishing two master’s degrees in Musicology (University Libre de Bruxelles) and Turkish ‘ûd (Lemmensinstituut), Tristan Driessens quickly embarked upon a successful musical journey with the Lâmekân Ensemble, which he founded in 2011. He played and recorded with Kudsi Erguner in numerous projects and with many other renowned masters of classical Ottoman music, including Derya Türkan, Bora Uymaz, Murat Aydemir, Sadreddin Özçimi, Yavuz Akalın, Levent Yıldırım and Burcu Karadağ. From 2016 to 2020, he worked for world music house Muziekpublique as the artistic director of Refugees for Refugees, an orchestra with a strong message that toured all over Europe to unanimous critical acclaim.
In 2022, Tristan Driessens became a composer-in-residence for Concertgebouw of Bruges. In this position, he created two new ensembles: Shepherds and Sultans (with Michalis Kouloumis and Miriam Encinas), which plays music from Cyprus and the Ottoman legacy, and the contemporary modal music oriented Soolmaan Sextet (with Christos Barbas, Nathan Daems and Annemie Osborne). His latest efforts include collaborations with Iranian kamanche master Kayhan Kalhor (The Longest Night) and Arianna Savall & Petter Udland Johansen (New horizons).
Tristan Driessens recorded over ten albums for record labels in Belgium and abroad, such as MMT (Turkey), Cypres Records (Belgium), Mahoor Institute for Culture and Arts (Iran) as well as his own association Seyir Muzik. As for 2023, he released his latest effort “Lahza – A Glimpse”, a solo album consisting of free oud improvisations.