Henryk Górecki (1933-2010). Polish composer
Henryk Górecki was a Polish composer who specialised in modernist dissonance. He studied at the Academy of Music in Katowice, and went on to teach at the Higher School of Music in Katowice. He composed largely serialist and 12-tone music in the 1950s, inspired by the work of Anton Webern, Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His work was often inspired by social or political movements such as his Miserere, Symphony No. 3 or The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which was used by Crystal Pite in her ballet Flight Patten.