Pintscher is one of Germany’s most exciting young composers, whose awards include first prize in the Hitzacker Composition Competition, the Salzburg Easter Festival Composition Prize and the Hindemith Prize from the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival .

Matthias Pintscher gained his early experience playing the violin in local youth orchestras and conducting them. He studied composition with Giselher Klebe and Manfred Trojahn and formative influences included encounters with the composers Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, and Pierre Boulez.
He first came to international attention with the opera “Thomas Chatterton” at the Semper Opera, Dresden in 1998, and later with his second opera “L'espace dernier” at the Opéra National de Paris  in 2004.
As a conductor, Matthias Pintscher works regularly with leading orchestras and ensembles in Europe and the USA. Since 2007, he has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich.
In this week’s Inspired Minds, Matthias Pintscher talks to Breandáin O’Shea about his compostions, his fasination with the French poet Arthur Rimbaud and how the visual arts inspire his music.

Interview: Breandáin O'Shea