De Decker, George

George De Decker began taking piano lessons at an early age and continued his studies at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Antwerp, where he was awarded first prizes in solfège, piano and harmony. He studied composition with Willem Kersters and André Laporte, and during the 1970s worked at the IPEM in Ghent with Lucien Goethals. In 1980, his Lineas y puntos for orchestra and tape earned him a laureate distinction in the Tenuto Composition Competition.

After seventeen years of teaching piano and harmony at the Mechelen Conservatoire and the Asse Music Academy, De Decker devoted himself entirely to composition from 1987 onwards. In 2008 he returned to teaching, among other positions as a lecturer in sound design at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp and as a guest lecturer in Ghent, Utrecht and Tilburg. In 2013, he won the Music for Carparks competition organised by Concertgebouw Brugge.

His output includes concert works, mixed-media compositions, music for film, theatre and dance, as well as sound and video installations. Sound and image continually influence one another, both in his music and in the visual art he has been developing since 2008. In his so-called ‘Islands’, the composer and visual artist come together. De Decker regards compositions first and foremost as stories: for him, sound is always a vehicle for meaning, emotion and imagination.