When Daniel Verstappen sits at the piano to play “cinematic” music, he does so without screens and cues from a director’s cut. Instead, the Belgian pianist-composer invites his audience into something more subtle and more intimate: a cinematic experience created entirely in the listener’s mind and unique to each person.

Verstappen is preparing to return to the Sydney Opera House following his 2024 debut, as part of his Reconnection album tour, bringing with him a program that blurs the boundaries between classical recital, film concert and personal storytelling.

Performing alongside violinist Yena Choi, one of Australia’s most versatile and in-demand musicians, Verstappen presents a concert that moves effortlessly between his own evocative compositions, contemporary classical works and reimagined film scores by composers such as Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota.

“Music shouldn’t feel like gymnastics” – Daniel Verstappen. Portrait supplied

For Verstappen, film music has long felt like a natural extension of his own musical language. “My compositions are very cinematic,” he says. “So it makes sense to perform film music alongside them.”

Over recent years, he has increasingly incorporated scores such as Zimmer’s Interstellar, Morricone’s Cinema Paradiso and Gabriel’s Oboe (from Roland Joffé’s 1986...