The most striking characteristics of Ingrid Meuris’s oeuvre can be well illustrated by looking at several of her larger works, which were written at intervals over a number of years. Central elements are clearly the presence of extra-musical themes, a Romantic-Expressionist style and an expanded tonal language.

Ingrid Meuris was born on 13 February 1964 in Beveren-Waas and died in Leuven on 2 December 2003. In 1978 she began her musical education at the music academy in Tienen, continuing her studies 2 years later at the Municipal Conservatory in Leuven. There she studied piano with Jean Bouwers, solfege with Gilbert Huybens and harmony with Frances Cabus. In 1982 she commenced post-secondary studies at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. In 1985, after a temporary switch to studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, she made a definitive choice for music. Between 1984 and her premature death in 2003 she earned a number of diplomas from the conservatory in Brussels. In 1990 she wrote a dissertation on the influence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy on the work of Wagner (as part of her music education program) and in 1999 on the meaning of aesthetics in Benedictine spirituality (for a course in cultural history and philosophy). Philosophy – Schopenhauer in particular – is a recurring element in her compositions. Ingrid Meuris used 2 pseudonyms for a number of her early works. In 1979-80 she wrote 3 works under the name Casimir van Chavary; in 1986 she used the pseudonym Reeny Sebastian. From 1987 she used her own name for all her compositions.
Ingrid Meuris taught at a number of municipal music academies: from 1990 to 1992 she taught general music culture and music history at the music academy in Dilbeek and also worked as a replacement music teacher in adult education and in a number of schools. From 1994 she taught general music culture and music history at the academy in Ninove and from 1997 she was a harmony teacher at the Academy for Music, Word and Dance in Neerpelt. At the Municipal Conservatory of Leuven she taught music theory from 2000 until her death in 2003.
©2004 Rebecca Diependaele, for Flanders Music Centre and MATRIX

Selective bibliography
- Y. KNOCKAERT, The quadrature of the circle: The String Quartet in Flanders since 1950 in Contemporary Music in Flanders I : Flemish String Quartets since 1950 uitg. dr. M. Delaere en J. Compeers, Leuven, 2004, p. 7 – 23

List of works: www.matrix.mu
Scores: Matrix and Flanders Music Centre