On Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_InterContemporain
Creation 1976
City Paris, France
Country France
Links Allmusic

The Ensemble InterContemporain was founded in 1976 by composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, with the support of French Minister of Cultura Michel Guy and the collaboration of Nicholas Snowman. It is the first permanent contemporary music ensemble, founded to provide performers for contemporary chamber music.

The idea for the Ensemble came from Boulez’s experiences as part of the historical avant garde of Darmstadt, Germany in the 1950s, contemporary of Stockhausen, Berio, Ligeti and Nono. He began his career as a composer in contemporary music creating pieces such as Penser la Musique aujourd'hui (1964), Releves d'apprenti (1966), Par volonte et par hasard (1975), and Points de repere (1985), moving onto conducting orchestras such as New York Philharmonic (1971-1978) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1971-1975). He states that his first love is composition and noted the lack of venues to premiere and promote new music, so he created the Ensemble for playing and producing music, along with the Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique for academic work into the same field. The Ensemble was based at the Cité de la Musique in Paris from 1995 until 2015, when it moved to the Philharmonie de Paris. Boulez held the position of president,[9] with Péter Eötvös becoming the first musical directed, appointed by Boulez in 1979. It has had several notable music directors including American David Robertson (1992–2000), Jonathan Nott (2000–2003), Finnish Susanna Mälkki (2006-2013) and the current director German Matthias Pintscher (September 2013– ). Their model of organization and musical development has been followed by many groups since then.

The Ensemble has toured extensively to South America, Russia, Canada, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and most major cities of Europe. Recent performances include the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Palacio de Bellas Artes (2007), Buenos Aires in 2012, the Festival Internacional Cervantino in 2014, and in honor of Pierre Boulez’s 90th birthday, a concert at the Barbican Center in London.

The EIC has recorded for a number of labels, including Deutsche Grammophon (music of Ligeti, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Boulez and Unsuk Chin), and KAIROS (music of Alberto Posadas and Matthias Pintscher), Luca Francesconi, Philippe Manoury and Michael Jarrell. Recordings by the EIC have received multiple awards, including the Gramophone Award and the Diapason d'Or Wikipedia