Matthias Pintscher is the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, entering his fourth season in 2016/17. Beginning in 2016 he also takes up post as Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Festival Academy. He continues his partnerships with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as its Artist-in-Association, and with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra as Artist-in-Residence. Equally accomplished as conductor and composer, Pintscher sees his two main spheres of activity as entirely complementary; he has created significant works for the world’s leading orchestras, and his intrinsic understanding of the score from the composer’s perspective informs his ability to communicate on the podium. 

In the 2015-16 season, Pintscher made conducting debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Prague Philharmonia. This season he embarks on a U.S. tour with the Ensemble Intercontemporain with concerts in Berkeley, Chapel Hill, and Washington, D.C.  Further highlights of this season include the premiere of his new cello concerto with the Danish National Symphony and Alisa Weilerstein, and return guest conducting engagements with the Naples Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony.

Matthias Pintscher's most recent orchestral composition, Idyll, was given its world premiere in October 2014 by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst. In summer 2015, his works Now I for solo piano and Now II for solo cello were respectively premiered at the Lucerne Festival, and gemini calls - a fanfare for two trumpets - was commissioned by and premiered at the Grafenegg Festival. His work, Chute d’Étoiles: Hommage à Anselm Kiefer for two trumpets and orchestra, premiered at the Luzern Festival in August 2012 by the Cleveland Orchestra.

Among his most celebrated achievements are his first opera, Thomas Chatterton, commissioned by Dresden Semperoper; Fünf Orchesterstücke for the Philharmonia Orchestra and Kent Nagano; Herodiade Fragmente for Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic; his first violin concerto en sourdine for Frank Peter Zimmermann and the Berlin Philharmonic; his second opera l’espace dernier which premiered at Paris National Opera (Bastille) in 2004; and his cello concerto for Truls Mørk, Reflections on Narcissus, which was premiered in Paris in 2006 with Christophe Eschenbach and the Orchestre de Paris. That year also included the premiere of a piece for Emmanuel Pahud (flute) and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, performed at the Lucerne Festival, where Pintscher was Composer-in-Residence in 2006. Osiris, a large-scale composition, was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Carnegie Hall, and received its premiere conducted by Pierre Boulez in 2008.

Pintscher works regularly with leading contemporary music ensembles such as the Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble contrechamps, Avanti (Helsinki), remix (Porto), and the Scharoun Ensemble. Since 2011, he has curated the music segment of the Impuls Romantik Festival in Frankfurt. He has also served as the artistic director of the Heidelberg Young Composer’s Academy. As of September 2014, Pintscher joined the composition faculty at the Juilliard School.