Count Eugène Traey (1915-2006) was born in Amsterdam of Belgian parents and studied music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Antwerp, where his piano teacher was Emmanuel Durlet. He went on to study in Paris under Robert Casadesus and in Germany under Karl Leimer and Walter Gieseking. After this international training as a pianist, Eugène Traey pursued a career both as a concert performer and a teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, of which he was the director until 1980. He gave recitals, performed with orchestras and took part in chamber music recitals with Arthur Grumiaux and Jean Laurent, as well as performing piano duos with Frédéric Gevers. He was the founder of the deSingel concert hall in Antwerp and was a regular member of juries at international competitions (Moscow, Warsaw, Munich and Tokyo, among others). From 1982 until 1995 Eugène Traey presided over the jury of the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

From 1943 to 1947 Karel Goeyvaerts studied piano, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition and music history at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory in Antwerp, and went on to study at the National Conservatory in Paris, where he pursued studies in composition under Darius Milhaud and analysis with Olivier Messiaen, and where he mastered the 'Ondes Martenot' with the inventor of this instrument, Maurice Martenot.

It was particularly Messiaen who left a great impression on the young Karel Goeyvaerts. The Sonata for 2 Pianos, written in 1950-51, can, for instance, be seen as a synthesis of certain of Messiaen's ideas with Webern's application of dodecaphony, of which Goeyvaerts made detailed analyses. This sonata was to have a major influence on the young generation of avant-gardists in general and Karlheinz Stockhausen in particular. Witness to this are the many personal and musical links between the two men, the extensive correspondence, and compositions by Stockhausen which almost literally took over the basic concept of this sonata (for instance, Kreuzspiel). In 1953, Goeyvaerts and Stockhausen, together with several other composers, realised the first music produced by means of electronic generators (in the studios of the WDR in Cologne).

In 1957 Karel Goeyvaerts temporarily withdrew from the musical world, although he continued to compose. In 1970, he was appointed by the Belgian Radio and Television (BRT) as producer at the Institute for Psycho-Acoustic and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent. After several years, he became the head producer for New Music at Belgian Radio 3 (the classical channel) in Brussels. In June 1985 he was chosen Chairperson of the International Composers' Rostrum a prestigious and active association under the auspices of the UNESCO International Music Council.

Karel Goeyvaerts was a member of the Royal Academy for Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. In 1992, he was nominated as first holder of the KBC Chair for New Music in the department of Musicology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. This position required him to teach a course for final-year undergraduates and to write a composition. The composition Alba per Alban, which he was writing to fulfil the obligations of this position, remained unfinished at the time of the composer's sudden death in 1993.

Max Vandermaesbrugge (1933) started his musical studies at the Music Academy of Forest. Continuing at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, he followed classes with André Souris, Jacques Stehman and Jean Absil. Since 1963 he has been director of the Music Academy Jean Absil in Etterbeek and since 1971 he has taught harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. In 1973 he was nominated inspector of musical education in the Walloon part of the country. He is also music critic of the paper La Dernière Heure. Notwithstanding his manifold official activities he still finds time to compose. His style is melodic, based on polytonal and polymodal sonorities and supported by constant rhythmic mobility.