Matthias Pintscher & Xavier de Maistre
Richard Wagner
"Siegfried-Idyll"
Peter Eötvös
Concerto for Harp and Orchestra
Claude Debussy
"Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune"
Claude Debussy
"Ibéria" from "Images"
Matthias Pintscher
Conductor
Matthias Pintscher - Conductor
Matthias Pintscher is the newly appointed Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony, effective from the 2024-25 season. At the end of the 2022-23 season, Matthias concluded his successful decade-long tenure as the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the iconic Parisian contemporary ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez in 1980 and winner of the 2022 Polar Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy. Pintscher has continued and expanded the cultivation of new works by emerging composers of the 21st century, alongside performances of iconic works from the avant-garde of the 20th Century and led the Ensemble in the creation of dozens of world premieres, recorded CDs and led the ensemble on tours around the globe – to Asia and North America, and throughout Europe to all the major festivals and concert halls.
The 2023-24 season will see Matthias’ fourth year as Creative Partner at the Cincinnati Symphony, where he will conduct a new work by inti figgis-vizueta, as well as an immersive video-concert of Olivier Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux étoiles. He will also conduct the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie on tour where he is composer in residence. As a guest conductor, Matthias returns to the RAI Milano Musica, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, NDR Hamburg, Indianapolis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Lahti Symphony, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, La Scala, and Berlin’s Boulez Ensemble. Pintscher has conducted several opera productions for the Berliner Staatsoper (Wagner’s Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman), Wiener Staatsoper (Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando), and the Théatre du Châtelet in Paris. He returns to the Berliner Staatsoper in 2024 for Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee.
Conducting highlights have included projects with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Cincinnati, Montreal, Baltimore, Houston, Pittsburgh and Detroit Symphony Orchestras as well as with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariinsky Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in addition to extensive international touring with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Matthias has also appeared as guest conductor with the NDR Hamburg, Danish Radio Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras as well as at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Vienna State Opera to conduct the premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s opera Orlando.
Known equally as one of today’s foremost composers, Matthias’ works appear frequently on the programs of major symphony orchestras throughout the world. In August 2021, he was the focus of the Suntory Hall Summer Festival – a weeklong celebration of his works with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra as well as a residency by the EIC with symphonic and chamber music performances. His third violin concerto, Assonanza, written for Leila Josefowicz, was premiered in January 2022 with the Cincinnati Symphony. Another 2021-22 world premiere was neharot, a co-commission of Suntory Hall, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Staatskapelle Dresden, where he was named Capell-Compositeur. In the 2016-17 season, he was the inaugural composer-in-residence of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and from 2014 to 2017, he was artist-in-residence at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, as well as composer-in-residence at Salzburg Festival and Lucerne Festival. Matthias is also professor at The Julliard School since 2014 and is published by Bärenreiter-Verlag.
Xavier de Maistre
Harp
Xavier de Maistre - Harp
Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists and a profoundly creative musician. As a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new work from composers. He also creates transcriptions of important instrumental repertoire.
This musical vision has led him to work with conductors including Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Philippe Jordan, James Gaffigan, Bertrand de Billy, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. He has been invited by orchestras such as Chicago, Montreal, City of Birmingham, NHK, Swedish and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras; Los Angeles, London, St Petersburg, Oslo and China philharmonic orchestras; Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. In his native France he has worked with Orchestre de Paris, the national orchestras of France and Lyon, the philharmonic orchestras of Radio France, Monte-Carlo, Montpellier, Lille and Nancy, and recitals in Paris and Lille operas, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nice, Poitiers and Avignon, among other places.
Parallel to his orchestral concerts, Xavier is passionate about chamber music and regularly puts together original recital projects. In 2020 he began a new collaboration with tenor Rolando Villazón, with whom he records a project of South American folk songs for Deutsche Grammophon. Over the last seasons, he has worked with flamenco and castanet legend Lucero Tena in a programme of Spanish repertoire, touring major venues in Europe, Japan and China, and releasing an album (Sony Classical, 2018). Since summer 2020 he has been in residence at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. As a soloist he has been a guest at many top festivals, including Rheingau, Salzburger Festspielen, Wiener Festwochen, Verbier, Budapest Spring, Würzburg Mozartfest and Mostly Mozart in New York. He also works regularly with Diana Damrau, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, Baiba Skride, Antoine Tamestit, Mojca Erdmann and Magali Mosnier.
During the 2022/23 season, Xavier goes on tour with Orchestre National de France in Germany and in Austria under the direction of Cristian Măcelaru to play Reinhold Glière’s famous harp concerto for the release of his new album. He also performs with Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Paris Chamber Orchestra and at the Musica Festival in Strasbourg. Xavier de Maistre also performs in solo recitals in venues such as the Staatsoper Berlin, in duo with Rolando Villazón at the Staatsoper Frankfurt and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and in duo with Diana Damrau at La Fenice in Venice.
Xavier has been an exclusive Sony Music artist since 2008, when he recorded his first album, Nuit d’Etoiles, dedicated to Debussy. Further releases included Hommage à Haydn (2009), Aranjuez (2010) and Notte Veneziana (2012), featuring significant Baroque repertoire, Moldau (2015), solo harp pieces by Slavic composers, and La Harpe Reine (2016) with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. His album Christmas Harp (October 2021) features paraphrases and fantasies of famous Christmas carols as well as melodies by Schubert and Tchaikovsky. In autumn 2022, his last CD dedicated to Russian music is released, featuring Reinhold Glière’s famous harp concerto and Alexander Mosolov’s forgotten concerto, accompanied by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann.
Born in Toulon, Xavier studied the harp with Vassilia Briano at his local conservatoire, before perfecting his technique with Catherine Michel and Jacqueline Borot in Paris. He also studied in Sciences-Po Paris and then at the London School of Economics. In 1998 he was awarded First Prize (and two interpretation prizes) at the prestigious USA International Harp Competition (Bloomington) and became the same year the first French musician to be admitted at the Wiener Philharmoniker.
He has taught at Musikhochschule in Hamburg since 2001.
He plays on a Lyon & Healy instrument.
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
The concert will be broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on 27 February 2024 at 8.03 pm.