The career of Catalan, Brussels-based pianist, composer, conductor of improvising ensembles, sound artist, painter, and photographer Josep-Maria Balanyà has taken him from classical music and jazz to free improvisation and contemporary and experimental music. Balanyà studied music in Barcelona, Switzerland (Swiss Jazz School and Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Bern), and Fine Arts in Germany (Europäische Kunstakademie Trier).
Balanyà attended composition workshops led by composers Helmut Lachenmann, Walter Zimmermann, and Ivan Fedele, and improvisation workshops by pianist Borah Bergman in New York. He carried out intensive research into the sounds of nature in Mexico, working with oceanographers and biologists, and having encounters with mastozoologist Bernardo Villa Ramírez at the UNAM University, Mexico City. He
