Born of musician parents, Maxime Pascal began his piano and later, violin studies, at an early age in Carcassonne. He was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in 2005 and took classes in composition, musical analysis and orchestration.

He quickly signed up for conducting classes with François-Xavier Roth. In 2008, while still a student, he founded Le Balcon (named after the work by Jean Genet), along with composers Pedro Garcia-Velasquez, Juan-Pablo Carreño and Mathieu Costecalde, the pianist Alphonse Cemin and sound engineer Florent Derex. The speciality of this multifaceted orchestra, playing all types of repertoires, is the complete integration of music with advanced technical sound systems.

Maxime Pascal thus developed his personal vision of a musical spectacle: that it should be a striking and radical experience for the spectators. Not long after commencing his international career, he became the first Frenchman to win the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in March 2014. Recently, Maxime Pascal conducted orchestras such as the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris, the Orchestra della Rai, LaVerdi, the Hallé Orchestra and SWR Sinfonieorchester of Baden-Baden und Freiburg. 

He conducted operas at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande), the Teatro alla Scala (Francisconi’s Quartett), and the Tokyo Nikikai (Berg’s Lulu). Future projects includeHonegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (SWR Symphonieorchester) and Rihm’s Jakob Lenz (Le Balcon) at the Salzburger Festspiele, Lavandier’s Marco Polo (Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen) at the Berlioz Festival, Eldar’s Like Flesh (Orchestre de l’Opéra de Nancy) at the Musica Festival, and Stockhausen’s Freitag aus Licht (Le Balcon) at Opéra de Lille, Philharmonie de Paris and Festival d’Automne à Paris.