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Composer and orchestra conductor and one of the most widely known interpreters of the contemporary repertoire, Péter Eötvös was born in Transylvania and expresses strong attachment to Hungarian musical culture, in particular to the art of Bartók, Kodaly, Kurtág, and Ligeti. Some of his compositions were written specifically for traditional Hungarian instruments, such as Psychokosmos for solo cimbalom and traditional orchestra (1993).
After graduating from the Budapest Academy of Music, he pursued his musical studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. There he met Karlheinz Stockhausen and between 1968 and 1976 performed with his ensemble and worked with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk electronic music studios in Cologne.
In 1978, he was invited by Pierre Boulez to conduct the IRCAM’s inaugural concert, and afterwards was appointed musical director of the Ensemble intercontemporain, which premiered his Chinese Opera with him conducting in 1986. He remained director of the ensemble until 1991.
Since his early experience conducting the London Proms in 1980, he has traveled to that city frequently, and was the main conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra between 1985 and 1988. After that, he was appointed conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, a position he held from 1992 to 1995. He then conducted the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra in Budapest from 1998 to 2001, the Hilversum Radio Chamber Orchestra (The Netherlands) from 1994 to 2005, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2005, and has conducted the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra since 2003.
He is a frequent guest conductor with prestigious ensembles such as the Berlin and the Munich Philharmoniker, the Radio France symphony orchestra in Paris, the London Sinfonietta, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also been a guest conductor at La Scala, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the Théâtre de La Monnaie, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and the Théâtre du Châtelet.
In 1991, he founded the International Eötvös Institute and Foundation for young conductors and composers. From 1992 to 1998, he taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. He left Karlsruhe to teach at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne from 1992 to 1998, returning in 2002.
In addition to his career as a conductor and professor, Péter Eötvös has written numerous compostions, marked by his experience in Stockhausen’s studio – Cricketmusic (1970), Elektrochronik, (1974) - as well as by his work with Boulez; his pieces are also inspired by jazz - Music for New York, an improvisation for soprano saxophone and percussion with tape (1971), and by Frank Zappa – Psalm 151, In memoriam Frank Zappa (1993).
From the beginning of his career, his music has been inspired by the cinema and the theater, for which he wrote his first compositions. His experiences in this field may be heard in the structure of large orchestra pieces such as ZeroPoints (1999), as well as in his operas Three sisters (1997-1998), Le Balcon (2001-2002), Angels in America (2002-2004), Lady Sarashina (2007), and Die Tragödie des Teufels (2009).
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