Maxime Pascal

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Maxime Pascal Biography English

Maxime Pascal is the Music Director of Paris-based orchestra Le Balcon

Music Director: Le Balcon
Chief Conductor of Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra (from 2024/2025)

Maxime Pascal has quickly established himself as one of the most brilliant interpreters of 20^th-century and contemporary music of his generation. Pascal’s musical journey has been driven by a passionate exploration of sound: upon entering the Paris Conservatory, he relentlessly explored a vast repertoire, from classical works to pieces by 20^th-century composers such as Morton Feldman, Gérard Grisey, and Pierre Boulez.

In 2008, together with five other students from the Conservatory, he founded the ensemble Le Balcon, an innovative collective known for its amplified concerts that allow the audience to immerse themselves “inside the sound.” Le Balcon takes its name from the play by Jean Genet of the same name, echoing the playwright’s deep exploration of representation and embodiment. The ensemble has become a key player in the contemporary music scene, engaged in ambitious projects like Karlheinz Stockhausen’s monumental Licht cycle, Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise as well as works by Gérard Grisey. Pascal considers the Licht cycle his life’s work, with plans to present the full cycle for the composer’s centenary in 2028.

Maxime Pascal with Le Balcon- Mahler: Symphony No.7 (excerpt). © Transcription for chamber orchestra by Joël Lasry, Festival de Sa

A commanding presence on the operatic scene, in the 2025/26 season Pascal will return to Teatro alla Scala to conduct a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande, he will visit Opera di Roma for Ariadne auf Naxos and will return to the Tokyo Nikikai Opera for The Damnation of Faust. Previous appearances at La Scala include Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo by Salvatore Sciarrino in 2017, which he subsequently directed at the Berlin Staatsoper, and Quartet by Luca Francesconi (2019). In the summer of 2023, he made his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with Le Balcon and the Comédie-Française in a highly anticipated production of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, subsequently revived in the Richelieu Hall. Other operatic highlights include Lulu at the Vienna Festival and The Greek Passion by Bohuslav Martinů at the Salzburg Festival, named “Best Show of the Year 2023” by the Oper! Awards, and, most recently, a new production of Péter Eötvös’ Tri Sestri at the 2025 Salzburg Festival.

Pascal will continue his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra in 2025/26, leading the orchestra in two Berlioz-centered programs, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, symphonies by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Strauss, as well as works by Kaija Saariaho and Joe Hisaishi. He will return to the London Symphony Orchestra, with whom he made his debut in January 2025 in a Boulez centenary concert, as well as the Hallé orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien.