MICHEL LYSIGHT
Composer
New CD: Beryllium
Beryllium brings together a lyric soprano, a composer and an author (Alain Van Kerckhoven) around four songs inspired by alchemy: the alchemist's work on matter is also work on himself. The transmutation operates as much on the content of the crucible as on the...
Trois Croquis for instrument and clarinet choir (second edition) is published
Trois Croquis for instrument and clarinet choir (second edition) is published.
Rhapsody for clarinet and string orchestra or piano is published
Rhapsody for clarinet and string orchestra or piano (2021) was commissioned by the Festival musical de Lasne and the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia. World première by the clarinetist Ronald Van Spaendonck and the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, 16th october...
Concerto for contrabass and string orchestra is published
Concerto for contrabass and string orchestra (2020) was commissioned by the contrabassist Philippe Cormann. World première by Philippe Cormann and the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, 16th october 2022, Festival de Lasne, Belgium // 27th october, Arsonic, Mons,...
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Imagine music that, from the very first listen, touches you to the very depths of your being. Michel Lysight’s compositions, some of which are dedicated to me, are moments of beauty in an anxious world.
The greatest quality of a composer is to go deep within himself to find what he has to express in a sincere, impudent process, that of the furrow of his music that he digs without respite like Sisyphus rolling his stone. Michel Lysight’s furrow is the rhythm, the counterpoint, the new consonance that he organises in a music that is inspired, luminous, sincere and endearing, making him a remarkable composer.
Michel Lysight is a master in the art of creating fascinating rhythmic cogs within which irresistible melodies coiled in subtle harmonic interweavings develop. It’s a joy to listen to his music, and a joy to conduct it!
The humanity that permeates his works, his personal language that is instantly recognisable, his sense of melody that is inspired by the past but resolutely turned towards the future – all this gives me, and will give me for a long time to come, the immense pleasure that I get from performing Michel Lysight’s music.
I came to contemporary music through a chapel other than that of Michel Lysight. This was at a time when membership of one school or another was a matter of life and death. Over the years, I was first struck by the number of artists who admired and defended his music; then I got to know the man and the composer. A man who stood tall in a sometimes hostile musical world. An artist who had the courage never to give in to the surrounding injunctions and to remain true to his convictions.
Michel Lysight invents captivating music, working in particular on rhythm, harmonic colours and melodic expression, taking account of the performers’ abilities while pushing them to go ever further. It’s rare to find this essential tripod: an artistically intelligent creation that satisfies and uplifts both the audience and the performers.
Among the Belgian composers of the 21st century, Michel Lysight stands out for the rich colours and rhythms that are the hallmark of his creative inspiration, where poetic expression is always present.
Michel Lysight’s music reveals an aesthetic path that reconciles tradition and modernity, creating his own language of sound, winking at postmodernism and transcending the polarities of the avant-garde of modernism.
To open a score by Michel Lysight is to be sure of bursts of music that encourage you to go further and further in the study of his intoxicating, rich and limpid compositions.
Although Michel Lysight’s compositions are based on minimalism, they are resolutely freed from it by an alchemy for which he holds the secret, a blend of playful counterpoint, melodic spontaneity and an ever-renewed rhythmic pulse. Sometimes meditative in nature, his music also ventures to share deep emotion, but is often bursting with energy and humour!
The new consonant music movement is the future of modern composition, and Michel Lysight is its perfect representative, both innovative and heartfelt.