The ear, it seems, is the most conservative of our senses, although, if we are to believe scientists, appreciation comes with exposure: Hearing more contemporary music is the only way to start savouring the joy and excitement it can bring. The more reason to root for Ars Musica, a festival staged across Belgium in March and April that for years has been labouring to broaden our musical horizons.

Founded by Paul Dujardin, Bernard Foccroulle and a few other high-flying music administrators in the late 1980s, the festival cranked up a gear last year by taking madcap Flemish composer Patrick De Clerck on board as director. The idea was to try to reach a broader audience than the genre's niche following. De Clerck, with his taste for provocation and sixth sense for luring innocent people into concert halls (ticket sales to the Klara Festival rocketed during his three-year stint as artistic director), may be just the person to pull it off.

De Clerck has already left his lurid mark: the pink brochure, the foetus logo and the Elvis Pompilio hats worn by festival staff are all part of his desire to shed the genre's ascetic image. Content-wise, the same spirit of novelty and irreverence permeates the programme. Electro-acoustic experiments, discreet lunchtime readings of Bartók and Debussy, new works by composer- in-residence Peter Eötvös, concerts that reach out to dance and literature, even jazz and rock (several commissions revisit top-of-the-chart singles by Pink Floyd and The Beatles...the only thing absent from this 22 edition, it seems, is stuffiness.

Concessions have even been made to more accessible modern composers like Arvo Pärt, whose plangent, mediaeval-inspired polyphonies are regarded by some as the epitome of kitsch. Ars Musica's mission is to help us realise that contemporary music can be beautiful, fun, diverse and approachable.

Also that Belgians are good at it: as many as 40 home-grown composers will be featured, from established figures like Philippe Boesmans and Henri Pousseur to young talents barely out of the conservatory, not to forget marginal figures like Baudouin De Jaer, best known for his quirky pedagogical experiments, or Giya Kancheli, a Georgian disciple of Shostakovich who's been living as a semi-recluse in Antwerp since 1995.

It may be messy and on the brink of dissolution, but little Belgium is home to one of the world's most lively and inspiring community of composers. And they're out to make themselves heard.
www.arsmusica.be