Boudewijn Buckinx

Boudewijn Buckinx was born in Lommel in 1945. He studied at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Antwerp and at IPEM in Ghent. He studied composition with Lucien Goethals. In 1968, he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Kompositionstudio in Darmstadt, where he collaborated on the project “Musik für ein Haus.” Buckinx was deeply impressed by Mauricio Kagel and John Cage. In 1972, he wrote his thesis in musicology at the University of Leuven on Cage’s Variations.

From 1966 to 1974, Buckinx gave concerts with the WHAM (Working Group for Contemporary and Current Music). WHAM’s aim was to attract specialists from other disciplines, such as philosophers and painters. Amateurs involved in the musical process were also included in WHAM. Besides Cage, the WHAM working group also focused on composers such as Christian Wolff and Cornelius Cardew. The working group’s last concert took place in 1974 with Buckinx’s composition Sinfonia a quattro velocipedi. This was followed by a five-year period during which Buckinx composed but not performed any of his works.

In 1988, Buckinx was the Belgian guest at the second “Week of Contemporary Music” in Ghent. In June 1991, a concert as a composer portrait was given in Kiel, Germany. Similar Buckinx concerts also took place at the Espace Delvaux in Brussels and the Club Mineral in Ghent. In 1988, his series 1001 Sonatas was performed in its entirety in Darmstadt. For “Antwerp ’93, European Capital of Culture,” Buckinx’s Nine Unfinished Symphonies were premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders. In 1993, a nine-day Buckinx festival was held at De Rode Pomp in Ghent. Buckinx’s music was also performed at the Tampere Biennale in Finland and the North American New Music Festival in Buffalo. In 1998, he was involved with the composers Gerard Ammerlaan and Jacob ter Veldhuis in the opera project Van alle tijd – van alle streken (Of all times – of all regions). In 2002, his fifth opera, Dhammapada, was performed at De Rode Pomp in Ghent. Between 2010 and 2012, several of Buckinx’s works were premiered during the Voorwaarts Maart Festival at De Bijloke.

From 1968 to 1978, Buckinx taught at the Provincial Higher Institute for Art Education in Hasselt. In 1978, he became a producer at the BRTN, a position he held until March 2000. From 1981, he taught music history at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Antwerp. In 1991-92 he temporarily replaced Frederik Rzewski as composition teacher at the Liège Conservatory.