György Ligeti was born in Transylvania, Romania, and later lived in the Hungarian People's Republic. In 1956, he moved to Austria and became an Austrian citizen in 1968. He taught composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater from 1973 until he retired in 1989. Ligeti passed away in Vienna in 2006. During his time in Communist Hungary, Ligeti faced restrictions on his musical style. It was only after moving to the West in 1956 that he could fully follow his interest in avant-garde music and create new ways of composing. He explored electronic music in Cologne, and later found success with orchestral works like Atmosphères, where he used a method he called micropolyphony. After composing his "anti-anti-opera" Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti moved away from chromatic music and focused more on polyrhythm in his later pieces. Ligeti's music became known to many people through its use in film soundtracks, although he did not write music directly for movies. His compositions were adapted and included in films. Notably, Stanley Kubrick's movies, especially 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured Ligeti's music along with works from other classical composers.