About this Artist

Matthias Pintscher is the newly appointed Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony (KCS), effective from the 2024-25 season. He launched his tenure with the KCS with a highly successful tour to Europe in August, with concerts at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. 

The 2024-25 season will see Pintscher in his fifth year as Creative Partner at the Cincinnati Symphony. As guest conductor, he returns to the New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Oslo Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orchestre National de Radio France, and the Boulez Ensemble.

Pintscher has conducted several opera productions, including with the Staatsoper Berlin (Wagner’s Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman, and Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee last season) and the Wiener Staatsoper (Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando). 

Pintscher recently concluded a decade-long tenure as the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the iconic Parisian contemporary ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez. He has held several titled positions, including as BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Association for nine seasons, Music Director for the 2020 Ojai Festival, and as Season Creative Chair with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Artist-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in 2018-19. An enthusiastic supporter of and mentor to students and young musicians, Pintscher was Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, and ran the Heidelberger Atelier, an academy for young musicians and composers, from 2005 to 2018. He has also worked with the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Music Academy of the West, National Orchestral Institute, and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. 

Pintscher is also well known as a composer, and his works appear frequently on the programs of major symphony orchestras throughout the world and have been performed by such orchestras as the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Paris, among many others. He has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School since 2014.

Matthias Pintscher is published exclusively by Bärenreiter, and recordings of his works can be found on Kairos, EMI, Teldec, Wergo, and Winter & Winter.