The French conductor Maxime Pascal was born in 1985 in Nantes, and in a short space of time has established himself as an outstanding interpreter of 20th-century and contemporary music. His musical career has been driven by a passionate exploration of sound. During his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, he was already investigating a vast repertory, from Classical works to pieces by composers from the second half of the 20th century such as Morton Feldman, Gérard Grisey and Pierre Boulez.
In 2008 Maxime Pascal founded the ensemble Le Balcon. This innovative collective, named after the play by Jean Genet, is known for its amplified concerts, which allow the audience to immerse themselves in the sound. The ensemble is one of the central players on the contemporary music scene, and devotes itself to ambitious projects such as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s monumental cycle Licht. Maxime Pascal considers this project his life’s work, and is planning a performance of the complete cycle to celebrate the 100th birthday of its composer in 2028.
In the course of his international career, Maxime Pascal has worked with renowned orchestras, and has received widespread recognition for his ability to guide them through complex and stylistically diverse scores. In 2023 he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducting an acclaimed new production of Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion at the Salzburg Festival, where he won the Young Conductors Award in 2014 and in recent years has also conducted works such as Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, Nono’s Il canto sospeso and concert performances of Rihm’s Jakob Lenz and Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero.
Other important artistic collaborations have included Pelléas et Mélisande with the director Benjamin Lazar in Malmö, Lulu with Marlene Monteiro Freitas at the Wiener Festwochen and Die Dreigroschenoper with Thomas Ostermeier, the ensemble of the Comédie-Française and Le Balcon at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and in Paris.
Since the start of the 2023/24 season Maxime Pascal has also been music director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.
