Pierre-André Valade was born in Brive, France in 1959. In 1991 he co-founded the Paris based Ensemble Court-Circuit of which he was Music Director for sixteen years until 2008. Valade is especially well-known and admired for his performances of repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries, and receives regular invitations from major festivals and orchestras in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia/New-Zealand. Of his many recordings, Griseys Les Espaces Acoustiques has been singled out for particular praise and won both…
Pierre-André Valade was born in Brive, France in 1959. In 1991 he co-founded the Paris based Ensemble Court-Circuit of which he was Music Director for sixteen years until 2008. Valade is especially well-known and admired for his performances of repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries, and receives regular invitations from major festivals and orchestras in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia/New-Zealand. Of his many recordings, Griseys Les Espaces Acoustiques has been singled out for particular praise and won both the Diapason dor de lannée 1999 and the Grand Prix de lAcadémie Charles Cros. His more recent recordings include works by Hugues Dufourt, and on Deutsche Grammophon Harrison Birtwistles Theseus Game, a piece he premiered in Duisburg and conducted at the South Bank, BBC Proms, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Lucerne International Festival and in Berlin. In the past few years he has conducted many different orchestras in a wide range of repertoire ranging from works by Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler, Ravel, Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky to Berio, Birtwistle, Boulez, Carter, Lachenmann, Stockhausen, as well as numerous pieces by composers of the younger generation, notably composers of the French Spectralist school such as Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Philippe Hurel, Philippe Leroux and Tristan Murail. In January 2001 he was awarded Chevalier dans lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. October 2011