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.

Philippe Boesmans was born in Tongeren (Belgium) in 1936. After he studied piano at the Conservatoire de Liège, he chose for a composer’s career. Initially greatly influenced by serialism, he soon felt it necessary to break beyond its constraints and exclusions. Never dismissing this recent heritage, he nonetheless developed a profoundly personal musical language, at the very centre of which lay meaningful communication with its audience.

Boesmans’ career has been a prestigious one. He has consistently participated at important contemporary music festivals (those of Darmstadt, Royan, Zagreb, Avignon, Almeida, Strasbourg, Montreal, Ars Musica, Salzbourg and IRCAM to name but a few) as well as recording extensively. Based in Brussels, he also took up the post of producer at the television company RTBF in 1971, going on to become the composer in residence at the Monnaie, where Gerard Mortier commissioned several of his works, including La Passion de Gilles (1983), the Trakl-Lieder (1987) and his 1989 orchestration of L’Incoronazione di Poppea de Monteverdi.

His relationship with La Monnaie continued to be a fruitful one, Bernard Foccroulle commissioning in 1993 a new opera, Reigen, staged by its writer Luc Bondy, who adapted the piece from the Schnitzler opus of the same name. That same year, the production toured to Strasbourg, continuing on to the Monnaie and the Theatre du Châtelet in 1994, and the Frankfurt Opera in 1995. Reigen continued to be staged throughout the nineties, for instance at the Nantes Opera (1997), the Wiener Opern Theatre (1997), in Braunschweig (1998) and Amsterdam (1999). In 2004, a new version of the piece, adapted for chamber orchestra, was commissioned from Fabrizio Cassol by the Rhine National Opera, and staged by the Rhine Atelier at the Colmar Municipal Theatre that May. Further performances were scheduled in Mulhouse, Paris, Strasbourg and Lausanne. The Opera Studio Nederland toured in September and October 2007 in a staging of Harry Küpfer.

In further collaboration with Luc Bondy, Boesmans created Wintermärchen for La Monnaie in 1999. This production too proved highly successful, being performed the following year at the Lyon Opera, in Paris at Châtelet, and at the Barcelona Liceo in 2004. Further performances were programmed in Braunschweig, Vienna and Nuremberg. The opera was recorded in 2000 with Deutsche Gramophon.

The one-act opera Julie was created in 2005 at La Monnaie and was programmed at the Wiener Festwochen and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Other productions were programmed in Braunschweig (2006), London (2007), Bolzano (2009), Sweden (2010), …

The last opera Philippe Boesmans composed, again in collaboration with Luc Bondy, was Yvonne after Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne from Witold Gombrowicz. This opera went in première in 2009 at the Opéra de Paris and programmed at La Monnaie in 2010. A new version of his orchestration of L’Incoronazione di Poppea from Monteverdi went in première at the opera of Madrid in June, 2012.

During his career Philippe Boesmans obtained many prizes: the Italia prize for Upon La-Mi. His Concerto pour violon and Conversions CDs won no less than six prizes, including the Koussevitzky International Recording Prize and the Charles Cros Academy award. He was awarded the Arthur Honegger Prize in December 2000, and the SACD Music Prize in May 2004. In December 2007, the DVD of Julie (BelAir Classiques) received several prizes among them le Grand Prix Charles Cros. In 2009, Philippe Boesmans was awarded for Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne ‘le prix de la critique française’ for the best creation of the year and the CD received the Diapason d’Or.

The parents of Jacqueline baroness Fontyn recognised her exceptional talent when she was only a toddler and entrusted her, soon after her fifth birthday, to the wonderful Russian piano teacher Ignace Bolotine. She had lessons daily, and Bolotine encouraged her to develop her taste for improvisation. At the age of fourteen, she decided to become a composer. She received her grounding in the techniques of composition from Marcel Quinet, then went to Paris where Max Deutsch, a fervent disciple of Schoenberg, taught her the twelve-tone system. She wrote in this style until 1979, although always with considerable freedom and flexibility. In 1956 she attended Hans Swarowsky's conducting class at the Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna.

From 1963 to 1990 she held the post of Professor of Music Theory, rising to Professor of Composition, first at the Koninklijk Conservatorium, Antwerp and then at the Royal Brussels Conservatoire. She is a regular guest of universities and conservatoires in Europe (Germany, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland), the United States, the Middle East, Asia (China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan) and New Zealand. Her catalogue of over a hundred works covers orchestral, vocal, chamber and instrumental pieces which are played throughout the world, figuring in the programs of leading orchestras and major festivals.

She has received many awards, most notably the Spanish Oscar Espla Prize and the Prix Arthur Honegger from the Fondation de France. She was asked to write the set piece, a Violin Concerto, for the finals of the 1976 Queen Elisabeth Competition, and has twice undertaken commissions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, Washington.
Since 2006, all her manuscripts are kept in the Library of Congress. Jacqueline Fontyn is a member of the Belgian Royal Academy and in 1993 the King of Belgium granted her the title of baroness in recognition of her artistic merit.

Broad harmonic effects, rhythmic flexibility and never ceasing exploration of instrumental resources are the hallmarks of her constantly evolving musical language. Its expressive and poetic dimensions appeal to the sensitive listener keen to discover new horizons.

André Laporte was was self-taught as a musician, quickly mastering the piano, clarinet and organ, while enthusiastically acquainting himself with modern music - as did his contemporary, Karel Goeyvaerts - through the radio programs of Paul Collaer, Louis De Meester, Vic Legley and David Van de Woestijne.

After completing secondary school he entered the Interdiocesan Higher Institute for Church Music (known as the Lemmens Institute) in Mechelen, where he studied under Edgard de Laet, Flor Peeters (organ) and Marinus De Jong (piano, counterpoint, fugue). Between 1953 and 1957 he was also a student at the Catholic University of Leuven, where he studied modern philosophy and musicology. He completed his studies in musicology with a comparative study of Ludus Tonalis and the Unterweisung im Tonsatz by Paul Hindemith. In 1953 he became a teacher of musical education and aesthetics at the Secondary Normal School of the St Thomas Institute (Middelbare Normaalschool van het Sint-Thomasinstituut) in Brussels. In this same period he composed his first works, folksong arrangements along the lines of Hindemith and Bartok, as well as a piano sonata and works for organ.

André Laporte became acquainted with the music of Schönberg, Stravinsky and Messiaen and was from 1960 to 1964 an annual participant at the Internationale Ferienkurse in Darmstadt, as well as the Kurse für Neue Musik in Cologne in 1964 and 1965. These courses gave him the opportunity to meet leading figures in the New Music movement (including Boulez, Maderna, Berio, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Kagel and Gielen). Like so many Belgian composers, he worked at the Belgian Radio (BRT, now VRT), first as a producer, later as a program coordinator, a production leader of the BRT Philharmonic Orchestra (1989) and ultimately as director of Artistic Ensembles (1993-1996), functions in which he was surrounded by such figures as D. Van de Woestijne, V. Legley, K. Goeyvaerts, L. De Meester, B. Buckinx, W. Westerlinck and L. Brewaeys. This position also gave him the chance to broadcast programs on “highlights of contemporary music” and “young Belgian performers”. Together with individuals from the Institute for Psycho-Acoustic and Electronic Music (IPEM), which had recently been set up by the BRT, he founded the SPECTRA work-group, which existed from 1963 to 1967.

André Laporte also won his spurs in music education. As early as 1968 he taught the New Techniques course at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels; this teaching position took on more solid form with his appointment as a teacher of music analysis, theory of musical form, harmony and counterpoint-fugue. In 1988 he became a teacher of composition, a position to which was added an appointment as teacher of composition at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo. Among his students may be mentioned Luc Brewaeys, Daniël Capelletti and Peter Swinnen.

In 1972, together with Herman Sabbe, he set up a new Belgian branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), of which he has remained the chairperson to this day.

André Laporte became a member of the Belgian Royal Academy for Sciences, Arts and Fine Art (1991), a member of the Flemish Music Board (Muziekraad voor Vlaanderen) and assistant chairperson of the Association of Belgian Composers (Unie van Belgische Componisten). He has won numerous prizes. Besides the Lemmens-Tinel prize, he won the Prix Italia in 1976 for his oratorio La vita non è sogno. The premiere of this work at the Flanders Festival in 1972 in Ghent attracted the attention of festival assistant Gerard Mortier, who as intendant at La Monnaie in Brussels would subsequently invite him to write an opera. His work has been performed both in Belgium and abroad; in particular, his Kafka opera, Das Schloss, was premiered at La Monnaie in 1986 and received its German premiere in the Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken in 1991.

Launched very early onto the international stage, Clemens Quatacker first studied with his father and then with J. DeLoof, H. Gadeyne and Y. Menuhin. After winning numerous prizes, among them the Prix Vieuxtemps in Verviers and in 1955 the 10th prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, he was invited to undertake concert tours in Europe, Africa, Mexico, Canada, Haiti, Uruguay, Brazil, ... He had many contacts with David Oistrakh, who had a high opinion of his young talent. In 1967 he founded the string quartet that bore his name, an ensemble that found rapid success. His group was regularly asked to perform at festivals, national and international. Clemens Quatacker has taught the violin at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and has an honourary chair at the Brussels Conservatory.

Wilfried Westerlinck (Leuven, 1945) studied oboe and harmony at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels with Louis van Deyck and Victor Legley respectively, complementing this with lessons in orchestral conducting (Daniël Sternefeld), music analysis and studies in form (August Verbesselt) at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. From 1970 to 1983, he remained at this institution as a teacher of analysis. Westerlinck also took a course in orchestral conducting with Igor Markevich in Monte Carlo. From 1968, he was mainly active with the VRT (Flemish Radio and Television), where he was responsible for the production and broadcast of chamber and orchestral music until the beginning of 2001. In the 1990s, he was a leading figure behind such radio events as The Night of Radio 3 and Radio 3 in the City. A number of his compositions have received prizes, including Metamorfose (Tenuto Prize, 1972) and Landschappen I (prize from the Province of Antwerp, 1977). In 1985 Westerlinck received the Jef Van Hoof Prize for a song cycle on texts by Bertus Aafjes and the Eugène Baie Prize for his complete oeuvre.