German composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher will succeed Susanna Mälkki as music director of Ensemble intercontemporain, taking up the post for the 2013-14 season.
The French chamber orchestra, founded by Pierre Boulez in 1976, specialises in modern and contemporary music and its 31 soloists play a wide range of ensemble repertoire in all combinations of instruments.
'I am thrilled by this appointment which will lead the Ensemble into a new artistic era,' said Boulez, who remains the ensemble’s honorary president. 'I know he has the passion, and that the musicians and members of our team are ready, to open with him a new chapter in our history.'
Pintscher began his musical studies in 1988 with Giselher Klebe at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold before studying under Hans Werner Henze and Manfred Trojahn. He held the Daniel R Lewis Young Composer Fellowship with the Cleveland Orchestra between 2000-02 and has undertaken commissions for leading orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic. He is currently artist-in-association at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
'I am very excited about my nomination as the next music director of the Ensemble intercontemporain,' said Pintscher, 'this seems to be a perfect fit for me at this point of my life.'
Cecilia Stinton