Jacqueline Fontyn & Karin Rehnqvist Named Honorary Members of the ISCM

Composers Jacqueline Fontyn and Karin Rehnqvist have been named Honorary Members of the International Society for Contemporary Music in a unanimous vote by the delegates to the 2025 ISCM General Assembly at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon on 3 June 2025 during the 2025 ISCM World New Music Days in Portugal.

Jacqueline Fontyn, born in Antwerp in 1930, is the one living composer that truly represents Belgium’s three official linguistic and cultural communities. In addition to her own remarkable career as a composer, which began in a time where female composers were still looked upon as a rare exception, she has helped helped many composers on their paths to their own musical languages and international careers during her many years teaching musical composition at the Brussels Conservatoire. Fontyn has received many awards, most notably the Spanish Oscar Espla Prize and the Prix Arthur Honegger from the Fondation de France. She was asked to write the set piece, a Violin Concerto, for the finals of the 1976 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition, and has been commissioned twice by the Koussevitsky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, in the United States. In 1993, the King of Belgium granted her the title of baroness in recognition of her artistic merit. Compositions by Jacqueline Fontyn were selected for and performed at the ISCM World Music Days in Belgium in 1981 and in The Netherlands in 1985.

Karin Rehnqvist, born in Stockholm in 1957, is one of Sweden’s most prominent and internationally recognized composers. With her unique combination of Nordic tradition, experimental vocal technique and daring musical innovation, she has contributed to expanding the boundaries of what contemporary art music can be. Her works are marked by a strong connection to Swedish folk music, often utilizing the technique of “kulning”, a traditional vocal technique that she has taken to a new artistic level within contemporary musicmaking. As the first woman to be named professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Rehnqvist has also been a pioneer for gender equality in the academic world and a role model for female composers. Through her work, not only as a composer but also as the founder of the equality-promoting composer’s organization KVAST, she has not simply contributed to the development of new music but also actively taken part in creating a more inclusive musical life in general. Rehnqvist’s music was performed during ISCM World Music Days festivals in 1992 (Warsaw), 1994 (Stockholm), 1997 (Seoul), and 2009 (Visby).

“I am deeply honoured – almost speechless when I see the list of those who have been elected honorary members in the past,” said Karin Rehnqvist. “It gives me a solemn sense of affinity with the history of modern art music, as well as musical life all over the world today, and in the future. ISCM really is and has been for over 100 years an important organization. When I participated with my music at festivals in the ’90s, it was the starting point of my international career.”

ISCM Honorary Members must be alive at the time of their nomination and agree to be nominated (although an exception was made in 1950 when Dutch composer Willem Pijper (1894-1947) was elected). ISCM Honorary Members can participate in all ISCM events and ISCM members are encouraged to present their music, if they are composers, in concerts they host as well as during ISCM World New Music Days festivals. In addition to Jacqueline Fontyn and Karin Rehnqvist, the other still-living ISCM Honorary Members are: Chen Yi (elected 2024), Michael Finnissy (elected 1998), Vinko Globokar (elected 2003), Anton Haefeli (elected 2020), Zygmunt Krauze (elected 1999), György Kurtág (elected 1994), André Laporte (elected 2006), Per Nørgård (elected 1995), Arvo Pärt (elected 2014), and Linda Catlin Smith (elected 2024). Some other significant ISCM Honorary Members who are no longer alive include: Louis Andriessen, Milton Babbitt, Béla Bartók, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Luigi Dallapiccola, Manuel de Falla, Sofia Gubaidulina, Alois Hába, Paul Hindemith, Zoltán Kodály, György Ligeti, Witold Lutosławski, Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen, Conlon Nancarrow, Per Nørgård, Krzysztof Penderecki, Paul Sacher, Kaija Saariaho, Arnold Schönberg, Hermann Scherchen, Tōru Takemitsu, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Iannis Xenakis, Joji Yuasa, and Isang Yun.