Biography
György Ligeti was a Hungarian composer known for his avant-garde works featuring micropolyphony and shifting masses of sound. Born on 28 May 1923 in Diciosânmartin (now Tîrnăveni), Transylvania, he studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and fled Hungary after the 1956 uprising, later settling in Vienna and becoming an Austrian citizen.
His music gained wider recognition through its use in Stanley Kubrick films. Ligeti’s compositions, including excerpts from Requiem, Atmosphères and Lux Aeterna, featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Lontano appeared in The Shining (1980); and a piano piece was used in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). He also wrote the opera Le Grand Macabre (1978, revised 1997) and numerous piano études. Ligeti died in Vienna on 12 June 2006.
