Renowned French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez died at the age of 90 on January 5, 2016 at his home in Baden-Baden in Germany.

Boulez had been considered one of the most influential voices in the contemporary music since the 1950s. As a composer, Boulez's work was noted for its difficulty, with one of his most celebrated works, Le Marteau Sans Maitre, being inspired by the complexity and lack of formal artistic structure of surrealist poetry.
Born in the Loire region of France in 1925, Boulez began his musical career at the Conservatoire in Paris. He graduated in 1945 and became musical director of the theatre company of Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud. His career as a conductor took off in the 1950s, during which time he performed with the Sudwestfunk (South-West German Radio). He also began acting as guest conductor for some of Europe's leading orchestras and festivals. He led the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1971-75 and from 1971-77 was also music director of the New York Philharmonic, where he championed contemporary works, including compositions by Stravinsky, Bartók, Berg, Messiaen (his tutor), Ligeti, Birtwistle and Stockhausen.
Alongside his composing and conducting, Boulez's creative output flourished as the director of the experimental music studio in Paris (1970-91), the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), where he had access to the latest computer technology.
Overall the artist won 26 Grammys and multiple other honours, including Sweden's Polar Music Prize, Japan's Praemium Imperiale and France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.