Belgian composer and recording artist Peter Baert has spent years creating music in service of other peoples stories, working across advertising, film and television. With his new solo album, This Fragile World , he turns those musical instincts inward for the first time, creating a deeply personal collection shaped by grief, memory, patience and renewal. The twelve instrumental pieces draw on Baert’s lifelong relationship with classical music and his experimental approach to sound. Piano, strings, subtle electronics, field recordings and carefully sculpted ambience combine in music that sits somewhere between composition and production. “This is music that resonates with me but that I don’t hear so much,” Peter says. “It’s an honest, human made album.” Raised on the Belgian coast, Baert grew up surrounded by classical music. His father was a distinguished organist and director of a music school, but rather than following a conventional conservatory path, Baert gravitated towards film school, where he discovered sound design and electronic production. His early work under the Petersonic alias explored rhythm and texture, while in 2006 he founded Raygun, an award-winning creative studio producing sound and music for brands, commercials and film. Following the death of his mother in 2008, composition became increasingly connected to a process of personal transformation. Years of self-inquiry, philosophy and meditation eventually brought him back to the classical tradition that had remained beneath the surface of his work. The death of his father in 2019 prompted another period of reflection. In 2020, Baert began working with Brussels-based orchestral ensemble Echo Collective, with Neil Leiter becoming an essential collaborator. His insistence that the piano be played rather than programmed helped preserve the vulnerability at the heart of the record. Influenced by composers including John Cage, Jóhann Jóhannsson, A Winged Victory for the Sullen and Ryuichi Sakamoto, This Fragile W orld occupies its own space between composition, production and contemplation. Rather than dramatise grief or seek resolution, the album allows silence, space and resonance to carry meaning alongside melody. Born from deeply personal experience, This Fragile World ultimately reaches towards something universal: an understanding that grief, tenderness and impermanence belong to everyone. As Baert himself says, it’s a human record to the fullest.