Henri Pousseur

Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (; 23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born on 23 June 1929 in Malmedy, Liège Province, Belgium, and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and Brussels from 1947 to 1952, where he joined the group called Variations, associated with Pierre Froidebise. It was in this group that he first became familiar with the music of Anton Webern and other 20th-century composers. During his period of military service in 1952–53 at Mechelen, he maintained close contact with André Souris. He encountered Pierre Boulez in 1951 at Royaumont, and this contact inspired his Trois chants sacrés, composed that same year. In 1953, he met Karlheinz Stockhausen, and in 1956 Luciano Berio. A less-well-known influence from his early years was the music of Anton Bruckner, and he maintained a lifelong interest in medieval and Renaissance music, as well as in non-European music. In 1954, Pousseur married Théa Schoonbrood, with whom he had four children: Isabelle (1957), Denis (1958), (1961), and Hélène (1965). Beginning in 1960, he collaborated with Michel Butor on a number of projects, most notably the opera