Mertens is a multi-talented composer whose output includes theatre music, soundtracks and many jingles for radio and television. He refuses to publish or distribute his scores in any way (for the time being). His music can thus only be heard live or on CD. This reflects the composer’s wish to put an emphasis on the sound and not on the written document or reproductions other than recordings.

The Belgian composer Wim Mertens (born 1953) is an international recording and performing artist who has given countless concerts, as a soloist and with his ensemble, all over Europe, North and Central America, Japan, Thailand and in Russia. He initially studied at the Conservatory of Brussels and graduated in political and social sciences at the K.U. Leuven and Musicology at the R.U. Gent. Mertens is also the author of American Minimal Music (1980), the first book to deal in depth with the school of American repetitive music. His early landmark albums are Vergessen and Struggle for Pleasure (1982), including Close Cover, still one of his classics. In 1998, Mertens became the Cultural Ambassador of Flanders. Since 1980, Mertens has composed pieces in different formats, from short, accessible songs or Lieder to magnanimous and complex three- and four-part cycles, and for different settings: from solo piano to chamber music ensembles and symphony orchestra. He often writes for unusual instrumentations: twelve piccolos, ten bass trombones, thirteen clarinets. Since his recording debut in 1980, titled For Amusement Only, an electronic composition for pinball machines, Wim Mertens has released more than 65 albums.