This week’s #RAArtistinFocus is French conductor Pierre-André Valade! Especially well-known and admired for his performances of repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries, he enjoyed a successful career as a flautist with Ensemble Intercontemporain, before taking up the baton and cofounding Ensemble Court-Circuit in 1991. Since then he has gone on to conduct major symphony orchestras worldwide and enjoyed relationships with contemporary music ensembles such as London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern. This week he returns to the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich. Watch Pierre-André Valade conduct a new cello concerto by Matthias Pintscher with the Tonhalle Orchester here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1rqNx9hCA
Pierre-André Valade has a deep affinity with the music of Pierre Boulez, and worked with the composer on some of his scores. Since then he has frequently programmed his work including Pli selon pli with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Le marteau sans maître with Ensemble Intercontemporain, Dérive 2 with Ensemble Modern and …explosante-fixe… with i Pomeriggi Musicali, Milano. Listen to his recording of ... explosante-fixe .... here: https://tinyurl.com/3enadbu5
He is closely associated with the work of the Spectralist school, such as composers Hughes Dufourt, Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey, and those who came after including Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. He has been a frequent advocate of Grisey’s monumental work Les espaces acoustiques most recently conducting it with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. In January 2024 he conducts the world premiere of Hugues Dufourt’s electric guitar concerto L'enclume du rêve, d'après Chillida at MIDEM in Nice. Watch him in rehearsal preparing Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques here: https://tinyurl.com/ycxzrcwp
Of Pierre-André Valade's many recordings, Grisey's Les Espaces Acoustiques has been singled out for particular praise and won the Diapason d'or in 1999 and the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros. Further recordings include works by Dufourt (winner Diapason d'Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique), and Birtwistle's Theseus Game, a piece he premiered in Duisburg and conducted at the Southbank Centre, Proms, Huddersfield and Lucerne Festivals, and in Berlin. Listen to his recording of Theseus Game with Ensemble Modern here: https://tinyurl.com/5b6mfsdy
On 1st December, Pierre-André Valade returns to the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich. The programme includes two Swiss premieres of a piano concerto by Ari Ben-Shabetai, and Iranian composer Farzia Fallah’s first orchestral work, as well as works by Ligeti and Ivan Fedele. With the orchestra, he has previously conducted John Adams Harmonielehre, Stockhausen’s Trans, and works by Brett Dean, HK Gruber, Helmut Lachenmann, Morton Feldman, Sarah Nemtsov, Eric Montalbetti, Philippe Leroux, Isabel Mundry, and many more. His performance of Morton Feldman’s Coptic Light was also selected to contribute to the orchestra’s celebratory 150th anniversary box set on Sony Classics, showcasing their finest performances with top conductors over the years. More information about the concert here: https://tonhalle-orchester.ch/.../sonic-matter-1747274/
