PIERRE BOULEZPrincipal Guest Conductor
CSO Principal Guest Conductor Pierre Boulez—composer, conductor, and one of the most respected advocates of twentieth-century music in the world today—will spend three subscription weeks with the Orchestra during the 2000-2001 season—two in October/November 2000 and one in May 2001.
Mr. Boulez’s eleventh annual residency with the Orchestra continues his exploration of important musical works of the twentieth century, with Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Symphony of Psalms paired with Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, sung by soloists and the Chicago Symphony Chorus in the original Czech language; Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major (with pianist Mitsuko Uchida), Bartók’s complete The Miraculous Mandarin, and the Chicago premiere performances of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Concertate il suono, in spring 2001. Mr. Dalbavie was co-commissioned by the CSO and the Cleveland Orchestra to write his new work in honor of Mr. Boulez’s 75th birthday. Adding music from the late-nineteenth century, Mr. Boulez will also lead the Orchestra in performances of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5, only the second Bruckner symphony that Mr. Boulez has presented at Orchestra Hall as part of his annual residencies. He conducted his first symphony by the composer—No. 9—with the CSO in December 1999.
At Carnegie Hall, Mr. Boulez will continue to hold the position of Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair through the 2002-2003 season. As part of his New York activities in 2000-2001, Mr. Boulez will direct three performances by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the first time that he has conducted that orchestra in the United States.
On October 21-22, 2000, he will be the subject of a seminar series presented at The Museum of Television & Radio in collaboration with Carnegie Hall consisting of three two-hour programs over one weekend. The series will focus on Mr. Boulez’s career from his tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic (1971-1977) to present, as captured by television. Mr. Boulez will also serve as advisor to a special exhibition at The Rose Museum at Carnegie Hall, examining the various aspects of musical notation employed in the twentieth century.
In March 1995, Mr. Boulez was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, only the third person to hold that title in the Orchestra’s 109-year history. An eloquent and passionate advocate of the music of this century, Mr. Boulez has become one of the Orchestra's most popular guest conductors. His current recordings with the Chicago Symphony include Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, Bartók's The Wooden Prince and Concerto for Orchestra, Stravinsky's The Firebird, and Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande and Variations for Orchestra. Born in 1925 in Montbrison, France, Pierre Boulez is one of the most distinguished composers and conductors in the world today. Through his own compositions and his activities as author, teacher, and advocate of contemporary music, he has made a decisive contribution to the development of music in the twentieth century.
After initial training in mathematics, Boulez pursued studies in piano, composition, and choral conducting at the Paris Conservatory, where his teachers included Olivier Messiaen and René Leibowitz. In 1953-54, he founded the Concerts du Petit Marigny, one of the first concert series entirely dedicated to the performance of modern music, which later became the Domaine Musical series.
Throughout the next decade, he was much involved with musical analysis and he taught in Darmstadt and at Basel University. From 1962-63, he was visiting professor at Harvard University, and in 1976 he became a professor at the Collège de France.
Pierre Boulez began his conducting career in 1958 with the Südwestfunk Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. His reputation as a leading musician brought him to the attention of George Szell, who invited him to conduct in the United States for the first time with the Cleveland Orchestra. From 1969 until 1972, Boulez was principal guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1971, he became chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and, that same year, he succeeded Leonard Bernstein as music director of the New York Philharmonic, a position he held until 1977.
His difference of opinion about state intervention in the arts as espoused by André Malraux led Boulez into voluntary exile for several years. He returned to France in triumph in 1974 when the French government under President Georges Pompidou decided to build a music research center at the Pompidou Centre and invited Boulez to be its creator and director. From the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) sprang the creation of a major and permanent instrumental group, the Ensemble InterContemporain, one of the world's finest contemporary music ensembles, which Boulez conducts regularly, in France as well as on extended tours abroad. In 1991æfor the first time in almost twenty yearsæhe gave concerts in Canada, and he also was guest artistic director of the Scotia Festival. In 1991 Boulez resigned as conductor of the Ensemble InterContemporain, while continuing as its president. In 1992 he conducted Peter Stein's new production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with the Welsh National Opera on a European tour that began in Cardiff. In January 1993, this production (released as a video by Deutsche Grammophon) was named 1992 Opera Production of the Year at the International Classical Music Awards in London. At the 1992 Salzburg Festival, Boulez appeared with the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In March 1993 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time in almost thirty years and he led the orchestra at a Webern festival at the 1994 Berliner Festwochen. Boulez is also co-founder of Cité de la Musique, a newly-created music center in Paris. Boulez's positions with three major symphony orchestras gained him an international reputation as a foremost interpreter of music by Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg as well as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Wagner.
His numerous compositions are widely performed, including Le marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli, three piano sonatas, Eclat/Multiples, Le visage nuptial, Répons, and Notations. His . . . explosante-fixe . . . was premiered in Paris in 1991 and in New York in 1993. Boulez also has published five books about music. His many awards and honors include honorary doctorates from Leeds, Cambridge, Basel, and Oxford universities, among others; Commander of the British Empire; and Knight of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Pierre Boulez's discography includes prize-winning recordings of Parsifal from Bayreuth and Berg's Lulu (world premiere recording). In 1989, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon to record a broad range of twentieth-century masterworks with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic as well as contemporary repertoire, including his own works, with the Ensemble InterContemporain. Boulez has won 23 Grammy Awards since 1967, five of those were with the Chicago Symphony. His recording of Bartók's The Wooden Prince and Cantata profana with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus received four 1993 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, Best Performance of a Choral Work, and Best Engineered Recording-Classical. He won two 1994 Grammy Awards (Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance) for his recording of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces, Op. 12 with the CSO. Mr. Boulez’s 1994 awards were presented to him in a special ceremony at Orchestra Hall in December, 1995. He won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance for a recording of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Tristia with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus. Mr. Boulez most recently received a 1999 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for the recording of his work, Répons, with the Ensemble InterContemporain.
Pierre Boulez first appeared with the Chicago Symphony on subscription concerts in February 1969 conducting Debussy's Jeux, Bartók's First Piano Concerto with Daniel Barenboim, Webern's Passacaglia and Six Pieces for Orchestra, and Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.
September 2000
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