Cursus Amarant . Györgi Ligeti

György Ligeti was born to Hungarian Jewish parents in 1923, in the border region of Transsylvania, which in the course of the twentieth century belonged alternately to Romania and Hungary. The young Ligeti endured a fascist dictatorship that led to the deaths of his father and brother, followed by a Stalinist regime that imposed Socialist Realism on art. After the 1956 Hungarian Revolt was crushed, Ligeti escaped to Western Europe, where he stayed until his death in 2006. This course looks at Ligeti's work as a series of reactions to these circumstances: - as a pursuit of absolute purity: rebuilding the world (of music) from the ground up - by depicting the world as an absurdity, a puppet-show, a ship of fools - by symbolising mortality: everything that ticks stops sooner or later - by evoking the despair of an anonymous, faceless multitude - by the suggestion of crying with rage, like someone making wild gestures with their arms - by transforming crying-with-tears into sounds An occasional glance in a distorting mirror is also allowed, however... €28 Amarant members €30.50 with reductions (under-26s/over-60s) €31.50 non-members Price includes ticket for the concert: Ligeti Labyrinth, by Ictus, Kryptos Quartet and the winners of the Queen Elizabeth Music Competition, Saturday 16th May 2009, 4.30 pm. Payment should be made by Thursday 30th April 2009 at the latest. Concert tickets cannot be refunded. www.amarant.be