Ensemble InterContemporain

The Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC) is a French chamber orchestra, based in Paris at the Cité de la musique and IRCAM, which specialises in contemporary classical music. Pierre Boulez founded the EIC in 1976 in association with the French culture minister Michel Guy and the co-founder of the London Sinfonietta, Nicholas Snowman, conceiving it as a group of virtuoso soloists who could play orchestral literature or literature for any combination o... more

The Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC) is a French chamber orchestra, based in Paris at the Cité de la musique and IRCAM, which specialises in contemporary classical music. Pierre Boulez founded the EIC in 1976 in association with the French culture minister Michel Guy and the co-founder of the London Sinfonietta, Nicholas Snowman, conceiving it as a group of virtuoso soloists who could play orchestral literature or literature for any combination of instruments. The idea was for the ensemble to be more flexible than an orchestra, allowing composers to write for a group of instruments of their own choice. This model has become quite prevalent in contemporary classical music for a variety of reasons, including the financial difficulties of orchestras in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the increased responsibility that the smaller ensemble placed upon each player. Many works that might have been conceived for orchestra are now being written with this instrumentation in mind. For... less