Ruben De Gheselle
"I have always needed images to compose."

Our colleague Ruben De Gheselle, lecturer in music at KASK & Conservatorium, received the Belgian Film Composer of the Year award at the latest edition of Film Fest Gent. It was not his first award, but one that gives him great pleasure because it is presented by the sector, i.e. by colleagues from the international film (music) world. "The beauty of composing music for films or documentaries is that you create something together with others."

The shelf where Ruben keeps his awards is gradually filling up: after previous prizes, in 2021 he received the prestigious Georges Delerue Award at Film Fest Gent for his music for Clara Sola, a film by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén. In 2022, he received the Ensor Award for Discovery of the Year and the Grand Prix for Best Music at Music & Cinema Marseille. Now he can add to that list the award for Belgian Film Composer of the Year 2025, which they received for their music for Anthony Schatteman's internationally acclaimed film Young Hearts, alongside their work for Emily Mkrtichian's There Was, There Was Not. Both soundtracks illustrate their intimate and refined approach to film composition.

Apparently, Ruben De Gheselle was destined to become a film composer, even though that specialisation did not yet exist at KASK & Conservatorium when he was a student there. "When I was studying composition, I always needed an image to be able to write music. I usually used a painting as a source of inspiration. So the step to moving images wasn't that big. Later, I composed music for the animated film Norman by Robbe Vervaeke, who is now a colleague at KASK & Conservatorium. The film won the Jean-Luc Xiberras Award for Best Debut at the Annecy Festival in 2013 and helped put me on the map.

It is by no means easy to break through as a film composer, but once you are noticed, more opportunities arise. That is certainly how Ruben experienced it: once the ball started rolling, there was no stopping it. He is currently working on projects in the United States, Iceland and the United Kingdom, among other places. The types of productions he composes music for vary from documentaries, dramas, youth films, thrillers and horror. "It's very varied, something different every two months or so," he explains. "But it's precisely that variety that appeals to me."

In terms of musical genres, too, anything goes: Ruben is classically trained, but works just as well with techno, traditional Irish music, Surinamese styles or compositions for vocal ensembles.

The question is whether you can still develop your own style within such a wide range of styles and approaches. Ruben believes you can: "Whether it's techno or classical, you can't switch off your own style in terms of melody lines and harmonies. Of course, the approach is different depending on the style of music, but I can remain perfectly true to myself."

One of the aspects that Ruben finds particularly appealing about composing for film is the fact that you work together with others (and other disciplines) towards the same end goal. "It allows you to test things out. When writing a piece of music for a concert, you are on your own from the very beginning to the performance. With film music, you can try things out based on initial images or even just a script, see how it works and get started with feedback. It's not just that music supports images. Both influence each other. Music has an impact on how images are experienced and vice versa."

The flipside of that collaboration is, of course, that you also have to take others into account. Isn't composing film music limiting in a way? Ruben has a nuanced view on this: "If the starting point is that you want to develop your own creative ideas without compromise, then film composition is indeed limiting. But film music requires a different starting point: you have to be aware that it's not just your own thing, but that you're working with others to achieve a result. With that mindset, it's not limiting at all, but rather inspiring."

Ruben has had a fascinating and successful career in recent years, and things continue to move quickly for him. Perhaps partly because of this, he finds big, concrete ambitions or dreams – such as working with a major Hollywood director – rather strange: "It may sound weird, but I don't consciously work towards anything in particular. Partly because I've already been able to achieve so much of what I really wanted to do in recent years. Furthermore, I prefer to look back with gratitude rather than fixate on a specific goal."