Pierre Boulez was born in France in 1925. He studied advanced mathematics in Lyon before turning to the study of music in 1942, when he moved to Paris and was admitted, two years later, to the harmony class of Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris. He learned counterpoint with Andrée Vaurabourg, composition with Messiaen, and dodecaphonic technique with René Leibowitz. He graduated with highest honors in 1945.

In 1946, he was appointed as the stage music director of the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault, for whom he conducted scores by Auric, Poulenc, and Honegger, as well as his own work. Works such as Sonatine pour flûte et piano, Première Sonate for piano, and the first version of Visage nuptial for soprano, contralto, and chamber orchestra, with poems by René Char, affirmed his stature as a composer.

In 1951, he began experimenting in the studio of Pierre Schaeffer at Radio France, which led to two studies of musique concrète.

In 1953, Boulez launched the Concerts du Petit Marigny; the following year, they were renamed the Domaine Musical, and Boulez served as their director until 1967.

He gave multiple lectures at the Darmstadt Summer Courses between 1954 and 1965, which culminated in a book titled Penser la musique aujourd’hui (1963). It was during this time that, alongside Stockhausen, Berio, Ligeti, and Nono, Boulez consolidated his status as one of the great musical personalities of his generation.

In 1966, he was invited by Wieland Wagner to conduct Parsifal in Bayreuth, and Tristan und Isolde in Japan.

In 1969, Pierre Boulez conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time, and from 1971 to 1977, he succeeded Leonard Bernstein as its director.

In parallel, he was appointed chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, a position he held from 1971 to 1975.

By invitation from French President Georges Pompidou, Boulez founded and directed the lnstitut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), which opened its doors in 1977.

In 1975, Michel Guy, the French Secretary of State for Cultural Affairs, announced the creation of the Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC), of which Boulez was named the director.

In 1976, he was invited to Bayreuth to conduct Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, directed by Patrice Chéreau, for the centennial celebration of the Ring cycle. Audio and video recordings were made of this production, which he conducted for five years running.

Boulez held the chair in Invention, technique et langage en musique at the Collège de France from 1976-1995 and wrote extensively on music.

In 1979, he conducted the global premiere of the complete version of Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Opéra de Paris.

In parallel, Pierre Boulez was associated with other major musical projects, such as the creation of the Opéra Bastille and the founding of the Cité de la Musique in La Villette.

In 1988, he directed a series of six television programs titled “Boulez XX^e siècle.” For the Festival d’Avignon, he conducted Répons in the Carrière de Boulbon, and was a composer-in-residence at Centre Acanthes, in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, where he gave a series of classes on orchestral conducting.

In 1992, Boulez stepped down from his position as director of the IRCAM to devote himself full time to conducting and composition. He signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and continued his illustrious recording career with some of the world’s greatest orchestras. In August of that year, he was composer-in-residence at the Salzburg Festival, which included concerts with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the IRCAM, and with symphony orchestras.

Pierre Boulez was a regular guest at the Salzburg, Berlin, and Edinburgh Festivals, and received numerous awards and honors, including the Siemens Prize (1979), the Polaris Music Prize (1996), the Grawemeyer Award (2001), the Glenn Gould Prize (2002), the Kyoto Prize (2009), a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (Venice Biennale 2012) and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2013).

The most important works composed while at the IRCAM are Répons (1981-1988) for six soloists, ensemble, and live electronics, whose final version premiered at the 1988 Festival d’Avignon; Dialogue de l’ombre double (1985) for clarinet and tape; …explosante-fixe… for flute, ensemble, and live electronics (1991-1993); and Anthèmes 2 (1997) for violin and live electronics.

His last compositions were sur Incises, which premiered at the 1998 Edinburgh Festival, and Dérive 2, whose final version premiered in July 2006 at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. In 2005, he also completed a piano score for an album of pieces for young pianists, Une page d’éphéméride, as well as a revision of a short work written in 1969, titled Pour le Dr. Kalmus.

From 2004 to 2007, he conducted Wagner’s Ring in Bayreuth again, this time directed by Christoph Schlingensief. In 2013, Deutsche Grammophon released a 13-CD box set of Boulez’s complete works. Among the many 90^th birthday celebrations held in honor of Boulez in 2015 were music festivals organized by the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as by his adoptive home city of Baden Baden, Germany. An exhibit on Boulez was also hung at the Musée de la Musique in Paris, and a series of concerts was held at the Barbican Centre in London.