Le Balcon was founded in 2008 by a conductor (Maxime Pascal), a sound engineer (Florent Derex), a pianist and vocal coach (Alphonse Cemin), and three composers (Juan Pablo Carreño, Mathieu Costecalde, Pedro Garcia Velasquez). The ensemble evolves with each project and concert, both in terms of its line-up, visual and scenographic identity, as well as its approach to sound engineering and electronic music.

In residence at the Saint-Merry Church and later at the Théâtre de l’Athénée, the ensemble became a collective, bringing together an orchestra and a troupe of multidisciplinary artists. Since then, Le Balcon has presented works spanning all periods of music history, with a particular focus on 20th and 21st-century compositions. Le Balcon has presented several operas, such as Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Eötvös’s Le Balcon, Levinas’s La Métamorphose, as well as the premieres of Lavandier’s Le Premier Meurtre and Eldar’s Like Flesh.

Since 2018, Le Balcon has commissioned new works, welcoming composers in residence every year with the support of the Singer-Polignac Foundation. In 2018, Le Balcon began the production of Licht, les Sept jours de la semaine by Stockhausen. Every autumn, one of the seven operas in this grand cycle is revealed to the public.

In 2023, Le Balcon presented new productions: L’opéra de quat’sous by Weill and Brecht at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, with the Comédie-Française troupe, directed by Thomas Ostermeier; Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, in a concert version with video by Nieto; and Stockhausen’s Sonntag aus Licht at the Philharmonie de Paris, in a staging by Ted Huffman.

In 2024-2025, the ensemble continues its work on Licht, les Sept jours de la semaine and presents Lundi de lumière at the Opéra de Lille.

Le Balcon, conducted by Maxime Pascal, performed at the Festival de Saint-Denis in 2017 for Mahler’s The Song of the Night and in 2022 for Le Chant de la Terre.