Born at Montbrison, France, on March 26, 1925, Boulez studied with Messiaen from 1944 to 1945 at the Paris Conservatoire, and he worked with René Leibowitz in 12-tone technique. At 22 he became musical director of the Marigny, a newly formed theatrical company. Ten years later Boulez founded the Concerts Marigny, later called Domaine Musicale, a series of concerts. He visited the United States with the French Ballet Company in 1952 and conducted concerts featuring his own and standard classical works. One such concert was given at the Edinburgh Festival of 1965. By the mid-1960s he had earned an international reputation as both composer and conductor. He became musical director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1971, leaving in 1977 to head the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (Institute for Research and Coordination of Acoustics and Music) in Paris.

Boulez' most important works include two piano sonatas (1946, 1948); Sonatine (1946) for flute and piano; Structures, Book I (1952), for two pianos; Le Marteau sans maître (The Hammer without a Master, 1954), in which bongo drums, snare drums, or gongs punctuate the textures of voices and instruments; Pli selon pli (Fold along Fold, first performed 1960); Domaines (1968) for clarinet and 21 other instruments; and Éclat-Multiples (1970) for orchestra. One of his books that has been translated into English is Notes of an Apprenticeship (1968).