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Kortrijk, 1938; composer, honorary professor of composition at the University College of Ghent, Conservatory Department, and honorary director of the SAMW Peter Benoit in Harelbeke. He initially pursued secondary music studies at the SAMW in Harelbeke; he then continued his studies at the Royal Music Conservatory of Ghent, where he completed the instrumental department with a first prize in piano, an advanced diploma in viola and chamber music; he completed the theoretical department with a first prize in composition. At the start of his career, he was mainly active as a pianist and violist in various chamber music ensembles such as the Flemish Piano Quartet and the Belgian Chamber Orchestra.
From 1970 onwards, he gradually focused more on musical composition. As a composer, he has received several awards, including the Jef Van Hoof Prize (1974), the Tenuto Prize (1974), and the Koopal Prize for his chamber music oeuvre in 1989. In 1999, he was awarded the Visser-Neerlandia Prize for his complete oeuvre.
In pedagogy, he worked for 20 years as a teacher of piano, violin-viola, and ensemble playing at the music academies in Harelbeke and Izegem. From 1977, he was successively director of the SMC in Ostend and from 1979 to 1997 at SAMW in Harelbeke. At the Royal Music Conservatory in Ghent, he taught musical composition and conducted The New Conservatory Ensemble. As a composition teacher, he trained composers such as Lucien Posman, Octave Van Geert, Bernard Baert, Willy Soenen, Rudi Tas, Dirk Blockeel, and Mieke Van Haute. In 1997, he retired to devote himself entirely to composition. Since 1993, he has been a working member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium, Arts Division. In 2019, he was made an honorary member.
In his hometown of Harelbeke, he co-organized the Music Biennials, a biennial music festival that each time highlights an important musical figure from Flanders or Belgium, or a period in Belgian music history. From 2000 to 2012, he was also co-organizer, incentive, and chairman of the International Harmony Composition Competition Harelbeke Music City, which took place biennially, alternating with the Music Biennials.