Maxime Pascal

Born in Nantes in 1985, Maxime Pascal is regarded as one of the most brilliant interpreters of contemporary music and the music of the 20th century of his generation. In 2008, he co founded Le Balcon, an innovative collective that has developed into a major force in the contemporary music scene and has undertaken large scale projects such as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s monumental opera cycle Licht. For Pascal, Licht is the work of his life, which he aims to present in its entirety in 2028, marking the centenary of Stockhausen’s birth. With Le Balcon, he has also conducted Saint François d’Assise by Olivier Messiaen as well as numerous works by Gérard Grisey, Pierre Boulez, Michaël Levinas, Morton Feldman and Fausto Romitelli, in addition to a wide range of world premieres.

His operatic activity includes engagements at the Opéra national de Paris, Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Tokyo Nikikai Opera. In 2024, he conducted a new production of Innocence by Kaija Saariaho at the Semperoper Dresden. In the 2025/26 season, he returns to La Scala for a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande, conducts Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Rome Opera and Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at the Tokyo Nikikai Opera.

In Berlin, Maxime Pascal conducted the premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (a co production with Teatro alla Scala) as well as the premiere of Péter Eötvös’s Sleepless, a co production with the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He made his debut with the orchestra of Deutsche Oper Berlin in February 2025 in a symphonic concert devoted to Maurice Ravel and Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov.

Pascal is a regular guest at major international festivals, including the Salzburg Festival, where he conducted Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion, awarded “Best Production of the Year 2023” at the Oper! Awards, and Péter Eötvös’s Three Sisters in 2025; the Festival d’Aix en Provence, where he made his debut in 2023 with The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill together with Le Balcon and the Comédie Française; the Vienna Festival with Alban Berg’s Lulu; and the BBC Proms with Hector Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ.

Maxime Pascal has conducted leading orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. As Music Director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, he has embarked on a complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies, to be presented over several seasons.

In summer 2026, he will conduct a new production of the monumental sacred opera Saint François d’Assise at the Salzburg Festival. From the start of the 2026/27 season, Pascal will serve as Principal Guest Conductor of Deutsche Oper Berlin and assume the musical direction of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Mittwoch aus Licht.