Un homenaje a la luz y las tinieblas

Twenty years after the death of Lucien Goethals (1931–2006), one of Belgium's most influential post-war composers, SPECTRA pays tribute to a visionary musician whose legacy continues to resonate. As a founding figure of IPEM and a long-standing professor at KASK & Conservatorium, Goethals shaped generations of composers and performers while helping to redefine the landscape of contemporary music in Belgium. Together with Duo Obscura—recent graduates of KASK & Conservatorium and passionate advocates of contemporary repertoire—SPECTRA celebrates a composer whose influence is woven deeply into the ensemble's own identity. It was Goethals' Spectra Group that inspired the ensemble's name, and for more than three decades, his music has remained an integral part of its artistic journey. Goethals' Concierto de la Luz y las Tinieblas, written in 1990 for the organ of the MIRY Concert Hall and the then Nieuw Conservatorium Ensemble, unfolds as a musical pilgrimage in three movements, paying tribute to an unknown traveller. His Gilgamesj for ensemble draws inspiration from the four-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian epic, following the legendary king through a series of epic adventures that ultimately lead to profound inner transformation. Opening the evening, Duo Obscura performs the rarely heard Sonata for Violin and Piano by Karel Goeyvaerts—Goethals' close artistic companion—as well as Goethals' Endomorfie I, a landmark of early Belgian electroacoustic music in which electronic and instrumental sounds merge with remarkable subtlety and imagination. A concert of rediscovery, this programme invites audiences into the singular musical world of one of Belgium's most original and visionary composers.