About author : RENS Jean-Marie

Jean-Marie Rens studied at the Brussels Conservatory, Where he received a first prize in harmony and fugue in the class of Jean-Claude Baertsoen and Marcel Quinet. He started composing and working on orchestration with the latter. He then went on to perfect his style with internships at the Acanthe of Avignon with Messiaen, Boulez and Takemitsou.

Several of his pieces have been created for groups such as Musique Nouvelle, the orchestra of the RTBF and Liege, Georges Deppe, Voices of Europe, Young Voices of World, the Belgian National Orchestra, Awards he has received include the CRMBs Prix Agniez, the Prix Sabam for the European Year of Music and the Prix Muizel Huis Koncerten.

Rens is currently director of the Saint-Gilles Academy and teacher of musical analysis at the Liege Conservatory. He has also spoken at numerous conferences and published several articles, in particular for the Belgian Society of Musical Analysis of which he is the vice-president.

Stravinsky, Bartok, Boulez and Ligeti are amongst the composers that have mad the most impression on his work. To the first two, he owes desire to organise the form very precisely. From Boulez, he inherited a taste for manipulating heights and lengths in the spirit of surrealism. As for Ligeti, he has crucial in his reflection on the perception of time in musical language.