Pierre Boulez Biography continued...
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 . |
