Bert Cools

Bert Cools has been expressing music since childhood with the guitar as his instrument.
He received the Erasmus Jazz Award for Best Musician (2010), the Gent jazz award 2016 with Hoera., the 2019 Klara prize for best world music release with Merope Naktes and the Klara prize 2020 with the quartet Machtelinckx Cools Gouband Badenhorst. Bert is mainly active in improvisation, electronics, folk and world music.

Besides worldwide concerts and composing for his own bands, Merope, Hoera. and Book of air Vvolk, he regularly plays as a sideman in international bands such as e.g. the Danish Efterklang, the American Sam Amidon and the Belgian Zwangere Guy as well as Trixie Whitley.

In 2013, he and his brother Stijn Cools founded the arts platform 'granvat'. A 'curator-based' entity that thinks and acts far beyond traditional frameworks.
'granvat' presents the work of the Cools brothers and that of other artists as a bundled collection. The music on 'granvat' is described as dreamy and challenging.

update January2023