Influential Composer-Conductor Pierre Boulez Has Died

The influential composer, conductor and new-music advocate Pierre Boulez died Tuesday at the age of 90 at home in Baden-Baden, Germany.

Boulez was one of the most visible and iconic classical-music figures of the 20th Century, known not only for his uncompromising work with serialism and electronic-music elements, but for also for his championing and collaborations with composers including John Cage, Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Frank Zappa. 

He's also celebrated for his interpretations of music by 20th Century masters Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg, Claude Debussy, Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Edgard Varèse, among many others.

As a conductor, Boulez appeared at the helm of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, Ensemble InterContemporain and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1971, he became both the conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the music director of the New York Philharmonic. He served as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival eight times between 1967 and 2003.

His slew of commemorations include 26 Grammy Awards, the Polar Music Prize (1996), a Grawemeyer Award (2001), the Edison Award (2010) and admission into the Gramophone Hall of Fame (2012).

During a 1986 tour with Ensemble InterContemporain, Boulez spoke with WNYC's John Schaefer about his electroacoustic work Repons, composed while studying at the pioneering electronic-music center IRCAM.

In 2003, Pierre Boulez appeared on the late conductor and radio host Gilbert Kaplan's Mad about Music to discuss an arrest in the 1960's and his thoughts on the state of contemporary music and audience reactions.

Listen to more New York Public Radio archival interviews with Pierre Boulez culled on the the occasion of his 90th birthday in March 2015.

Read Q2 Music host and composer Phil Kline's 2012 piece on Pierre Boulez and Claude Debussy.