VERELST, Lente

Lente Verelst is a Belgian composer of film music and operas. She started her musical education at the Academy for Music, Word and Dance in Mortsel. Initially she took flute lessons and later also composition with Stefan Van Puymbroeck. Stimulated by these lessons, she decided to study composition at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp with Wim Henderickx and Luc van Hove. For her master's degree she went to the Royal College of Music in London, where she specialized in Composition for Screen. She took lessons from Vasco Hexel, among others. She graduated in 2018.

While training in London, she had the opportunity to collaborate on an opera project and wrote her first 15-minute opera, Bear and Friends. This opera was performed at the Royal College of Music in collaboration with Tête à Tête, an opera company and festival in Cornwall. During this project she noticed that she preferred writing for opera and musical theater rather than for film, because in these genres a composer is involved in the creation from the beginning. For her, opera is the ultimate art form.

In 2018, Verelst was one of the finalists at the seventh International Film Music Competition during the Film Festival Zurich. In 2019, she won Best Original Score for Dance of the Porcelain Demons at the IndieX Film Festival.

Together with her partner Hans Vercauteren, she started the production company Story Tree, which writes music for films, games, musical theatre, opera and dance. They also support productions and recordings. She also teaches at the Academy for music, word and dance of Mortsel-Edegem-Kontich. She teaches composition and arranging, and some subjects for young children.