Ensemble intercontemporain

Established as one of the earliest ensembles anywhere to concentrate exclusively on contemporary repertoire, Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain continues to rank among the most prominent. For the greater part of his career the avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez served as its leader.

Boulez created the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris during 1976. Although the London Sinfonietta already specialized in twentieth-century scores, an organization built solely around new music was then virtually without precedent. The group maintains a roster of thirty-one musicians whose instrumentation matches the requirements of landmark chamber pieces by Stravinsky, Webern, Schoenberg, and Boulez himself. From its inception the Ensemble Intercontemporain developed alongside IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique), the research and performance facility housed at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, and it appeared frequently at that venue in its first seasons. Boulez assumed the presidency of the Ensemble Intercontemporain and engaged successive music directors, the first being Péter Eötvös in 1979; nevertheless, during Boulez’s lifetime the ensemble remained closely linked to his name. His stature enabled an immediate international recording presence, and in 1982 the group issued an album of works by Berg and Stravinsky on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Although its programs and discs center on recent compositions, the Ensemble also presents classic twentieth-century music. Subsequent music directors have included David Robertson (1992–2000), Susanna Mälkki (2006–2013, the first woman to hold the post), and Pierre Bleuse, scheduled to assume the role in 2023.

In 1995 the Ensemble Intercontemporain relocated to the Cité de la Musique complex in Paris and, in 2013, to the adjacent Philharmonie de Paris. Drawing on a catalogue of roughly two thousand contemporary works, many of them commissioned by the ensemble, it presents approximately thirty concerts each year in the capital while maintaining an active touring schedule that has taken it to North and South America, Russia, East Asia, Australia, and numerous European capitals. Smaller configurations drawn from the full roster frequently appear under the name Soloists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. The ensemble has released some thirty albums on Kairos, Wergo, and Alpha in addition to sustaining its association with Deutsche Grammophon; in 2022 it moved to Nonesuch for the album Reich/Richter.