Belgian composer Benoît Chantry (b. 1975) writes music for wind bands, musical theatre, and more, with a penchant for mixing styles. He started music study early at the Tournai (Doornik) Conservatory, where he is now a professor and director of the wind band. He also teaches at the Belgian Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels. Read more about him at windmusic.org and Tierolff publishing. He also has a MySpace page where you can hear more of his music.
Chantry wrote Les Cités obscures in 2013 for the 20th anniversary of Hafabra Music (which published the piece) and its founder Louis Martinus. The piece is based on a collection of graphic novels of the same name by the Belgian comic book artist François Schuiten and writer Benoît Peeters. The series takes place on a counter-Earth in which individual city-states have developed independent civilizations and architectural styles. Chantry’s piece attempts to depict the differences between these civilizations, obscured as they are from us and each other.
Check out Les cités obscures at Hafabra Music. Here is a recording of the full piece, with score:
The graphic novel series was originally written in French, but translations are available in most Western European languages. In English, early versions are called “Cities of the Fantastic” or “Stories of the Fantastic”, although more recently fans have started calling them “The Obscure Cities”, a closer (but still approximate) match to the original French. New volumes are still appearing, since both creators are still very much active. Read more on Wikipedia or The Obscure Cities, a site run by the American publishers of the series. For a more complete picture of the series, check out a Google Image Search!