Lukas Pairon

Born in 1958. Lukas Pairon is the founder of SIMM (Social Impact of Music Making), the international scholarly network of scholars developing research on the roles music can play in social and community contexts. He was co-founder and general director of the Belgian contemporary music ensemble Ictus (1994–2013), and co-founder and director of Walpurgis (1987-97), a company known for commissioning and producing small-scale contemporary music theater. Lukas is now a visiting scholar at the Institute of Sociology of Jena University for his postdoctoral research in Kinshasa, DR Congo (supervised by Hartmut Rosa). His background bridges both high-level contemporary composition and participatory creation.