Pierre Boulez
Wolf Prize Laureate in Music 2000
Pierre Boulez
Award citation:
“one of the most creative living personalities in the realm of music”.
Prize share:
Pierre Boulez
Riccardo Muti
Pierre Boulez is a great composer, an outstanding conductor, a philosopher of music, and a distinguished teacher – a true musical savant. He is the most prominent contemporary figure to combine together the creator and the investigator within his personality. He has gone a long way to investigate the acoustical limits of sound, as well as its influence on people.
Boulez is the scholar who opened wide, to young composers of the fifties, the gates leading to the new aesthetics of the musical avant-garde style that developed during the second half of the twentieth century.
It was Boulez who created the IRCAM (Institute de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique) at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. On his initiative and under his direction, it became a universal center, where investigators from the world over are intent on deciphering the codes that link music to human beings. At IRCAM Boulez established a group of performers who give expression to the new musical discoveries through public concerts. He also encourages young musicians to present their original compositions to the public at large.
