Peter Eötvös: 80th Birthday on 2 January 2024

The fascinating and diverse creativity of Peter Eötvös is fuelled by the triad of composition, musical practice, and educational enthusiasm.

He thrived on the varied influences of 1950s Budapest still dominated by Zoltán Kodály, the vivacious 1960s in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, and subsequently in Paris where he was appointed as the musical director of the newly formed Ensemble Intercontemporain by Pierre Boulez in 1978. This was the beginning of a whirlwind conducting career in which Eötvös worked with almost all renowned orchestras across the world while simultaneously pursuing a teaching career as professor at the music colleges in Karlsruhe and Cologne (here as the successor of Mauricio Kagel) and additionally establishing his own academy for young talent in Budapest. His compositional output includes 13 operas and a multitude of vocal and instrumental works ranging from large-scale symphonic compositions to distinctive chamber music. During the coming year, we can look forward not only to numerous opera performances and concerts (see also p. 8), but also an academic congress at IRCAM in Paris on 12 and 13 January.

We wish him a very happy 80th birthday.

• Peter Eötvös: Composer Profile
• Work of the Week: Harp Concerto by Peter Eötvös, World Premiere in Paris