The world’s most influential living composer turns 90-years-old today.

Renowned composer and conductor Pierre Boulez celebrates his 90th birthday today. The French musician is arguably the most influential living composer in the world, both in his seismic impact on the course of contemporary composition over the past 70 years and via his stimulation of some the highest regarded institutions of modern music, such as Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Parisian electronic music research centre IRCAM. He was also instrumental in lobbying for the construction of the newly opened Philharmonie de Paris concert hall.

In addition to his own personal contribution to contemporary music, Boulez has been a key champion for the works of many of the past century’s most significant compositional voices, including Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, John Cage, György Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

A student of Oliver Messiaen, Boulez was among one of Europe’s strongest advocates of serial twelve-tone composition. Perhaps Boulez’s most significant musical contribution, and by far one of the greatest examples of serial technique in canon of 20th century music, is Le Marteau sans Maître. This landmark piece, premiered in 1955, was revolutionary in its adoption of seemingly disparate musical influences, such as jazz, Balaniese Gamelan and traditional Japanese references, unifed through serialism. Since this keystone accomplishment Boulez’s music has explored a number of other compositional methods, including improvisation and chance music, electronic music, and music exploring spatial relationships between musicians.

As a conductor his achievements are equally impressive. He has directed some of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris. His conducting earned Boulez a reputation for perfectionism, and his recordings of major works from the 20th century are considered some of the most polished interpretations available.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor David Robertson, whom Boulez appointed as the first non-French director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, spoke to Limelight Magazine about seeing Boulez conduct. “I used to watch Boulez in rehearsals before I got to know him and one day I said, “how do you get such incredible clarity out of the orchestra?” He said, “It’s simple. If you have it very clear in your head what you want to hear, from the orchestrations and the harmonies and the different parts, you will automatically do the necessary things to hear that. And that will make the score very clear.” It’s this clarity in Pierre’s musical that that means he does what is necessary in rehearsal to bring them out.” Robertson shares. “This attention to detail would repay dividends later, not only in terms of how the music sounded, but also in the confidence the players had in playing it.” Boulez was ranked 8th in our list of the ten greatest maestros of all time, available in the April issue of Limelight Magazine, on sale now.