Boudewijn Buckinx

Boudewijn Buckinx was born in Lommel in 1945 and dedicated to music from an early age. He studied at the Antwerp conservatory and at the Institute for Psycho-Acoustic and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent. Composition he studied with Lucien Goethals.

Since 1963, he introduced a lot of new music to Flanders with his group WHAM (dutch acronym for Working Group for Contemporary and Topical Music), including music by Christian Wolff, Cornelius Cardew and John Cage. Cage was also the subject of his licenciate's thesis in musicology (1972).

As a composer, he is a typical exponent of Postmodernism [1001 Sonates for violin and piano, 9 Unfinished Symphonies]. The series of 1001 Sonates in their totality were performed in Darmstadt (1988), Brussels (1989), Ghent (1994) and Kiel (1998). Special Buckinx concerts have been held in Ghent, Brussels and Kiel, and his music has also been performed at important festivals such as the Contemporary Music Week in Ghent [Belgium], the "Ferienkurse" in Darmstadt, the Tampere Biennale (Finland) and the North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, Bucarest and Arad. In 1993 a 9-day Buckinx Festival was held in De Rode Pomp in Ghent.

Buckinx composed five operas: a chamber opera "Karoena [The Mermaid]" in Russian, his opera on the life and philosophy of "Socrates", "Le Valchirie", the opera "Van Alle Tijden", based on the mythological character of Reinaert, as well as ‘Dhammapada’, created in 2002.

In 1998, Buckinx composed "La Sonate de Vinteuil" for mezzo soprano, piano and violin on texts by Marcel Proust. Also from 1998 is his work "Erwachen der Liebe" on texts by Philipp Schober, for soprano, violin solo and chamber orchestra. In 2000, Buckinx completed his "Zen Requiem" for tenor, baritone, male chorus and chamber orchestra, as well as the "Nietzsche Talk Show" for tenor and band.