Biography
Maxime Pascal has established himself as one of the most brilliant interpreters of 20th-century and contemporary music of his generation.
His musical journey has been driven by a passionate exploration of sound, developing an approach in which sound itself lies at the very center of the musical experience.
In 2008, he co-founded Le Balcon, an innovative collective whose amplified concerts allow audiences to immerse themselves “inside the sound.” The ensemble takes its name from the play by Jean Genet, in resonance with themes of representation and embodiment.
Having become a major force on the contemporary scene, Le Balcon has embarked on large-scale projects such as the monumental opera Licht by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Pascal regards Licht as the work of his life, which he plans to present in its entirety for Stockhausen’s centenary in 2028.
With Le Balcon, he has also conducted Saint François d’Assise by Olivier Messiaen and a vast number of works by Gérard Grisey, Pierre Boulez, Michaël Levinas, Morton Feldman and Fausto Romitelli, as well as numerous world premieres.
A commanding presence on the operatic stage, he has conducted Maurice Ravel's Gianni Schicchi and L'Heure espagnole at the Paris Opera, Salvatore Sciarrino's Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo and Luca Francesconi's Quartett at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and Péter Eötvös's Sleepless at the Berlin Staatsoper and the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Alban Berg's Lulu and Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila at the Tokyo Nikikai Opera. In 2024 he conducted a new production of Kaija Saariaho's Innocence at the Dresden Opera. The 2025-2026 season took him from Karlheinz Stockhausen's Montag aus Licht at the Philharmonie de Paris to Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, ahead of a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
He is a regular guest at the world's leading international festivals. The Salzburg Festival has welcomed him since 2023: first with Bohuslav Martinů's The Greek Passion, named "Best Production of the Year 2023" at the Oper! Awards, then with Péter Eötvös's Tri Sestri and a Pierre Boulez tribute concert in 2025; in August 2026 he conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Felsenreitschule in a new production of Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise, staged by Romeo Castellucci. He made his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in summer 2023 with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's L'Opéra de quat'sous, alongside Le Balcon and the Comédie-Française, in a production subsequently revived at the Salle Richelieu. He has also appeared at the Wiener Festwochen with Alban Berg's Lulu, at the BBC Proms with the Hallé Orchestra in Hector Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, and at the Festival de Saint-Denis and the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André.
Maxime Pascal has conducted such distinguished ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the SWR Symphonieorchester, the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. The 2026-2027 season takes him to the Berliner Philharmoniker, in Hector Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, and to the Münchner Philharmoniker, for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Since the beginning of the 2026-2027 season, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin alongside Michele Spotti and Titus Engel, the three conductors sharing the company's musical leadership. He opens his tenure there with Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mittwoch aus Licht, performed with Le Balcon, followed by a symphony concert devoted to Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.
That same season, he is Artist in Focus (« Künstler im Fokus ») at the Musikverein in Vienna. There he conducts Berlioz's Requiem for his debut with the Wiener Symphoniker and the Wiener Singverein, Jonathan Harvey's Bhakti for Le Balcon's first appearance in the hall, in collaboration with Wien Modern, Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu with the ORF RSO Wien, and Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in Arnold Schönberg's chamber version, with the musicians of the Wiener Philharmoniker.
Music Director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, he continues there a complete cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies programmed across several seasons, joined in 2026-2027 by Mahler's Ninth Symphony and programmes devoted to Wagner, Ravel and Sibelius.
Explore Maxime Pascal's 2026-2027 season.
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Photos © Nieto, Meng Phu, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Rai, Monika Rittershaus, Nikolaj Lund
