Conductor Patrick Davin was an important champion of contemporary music, active in both orchestral music and opera. He worked closely with such composers as Henri Pousseur, Bruno Mantovani, and Philippe Boesmans. Davin's move into conducting came about in part through his having served as an assistant to contemporary composers who were his teachers, including Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio. From 1988 to 1999, Davin served as a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, but he found himself increasingly in demand as a conductor after he founded small contemporary music groups of his own. In 2010, he issued a recording of composer Kris Defoort's House of the Sleeping Beauties. Davin was named director of the music department of the Royal Conservatory of Liège in 2020, but he died suddenly during a rehearsal. His recording of works by Léon Boëllmann with the Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra appeared posthumously in 2021.