Born in 1958 in the Paris region, Michel Grizard studied the guitar with Ramón Cueto and Alexandre Lagoya at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), where he obtained a first prize diploma in guitar and chamber music (DFS).
A laureate of several international competitions, including Belgrade and Taranto (Italy), he regularly appears as a recitalist and chamber musician in Europe, North Africa, Asia (Vietnam and China) and the USA. In the meantime, he gives masterclasses at music colleges such as the Irish Royal Academy of Music in Dublin, the National Conservatory in Hanoi, the Ankara Institute, the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona, the Geneva High School for Music and the Pôle Supérieur of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Lille and Toulouse. He is also regularly invited to give recitals at festivals such as the Seville Guitar Festival, Festival Consonances, La Folle Journée d’Ekaterinbourg in Russia et de Nantes, where his concerts are often broadcast by France Musique radio.
He often performs the early 19th century repertoire on period instruments and is fond of contemporary music, a repertoire he plays with the Utopik ensemble, a group devoted to contemporary works, which he co-founded.
Alongside his activities as a soloist, he has been a member of the Guitar Quartet of Versailles, the first musical ensemble of this kind in France, for over twenty years. He also performs in duet with his wife Cécile Cueto-Grizard, a cellist, and with Helena Cueto, his daughter, a flamenco dancer.
His discography is available on the Naxos (notably the recording of Leonardo Balada’s Concerto with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and the Guitar Quartet of Versailles), De plein vent, Centaur records (USA), Quantum, Skarbo and Mirare labels.
Michel Grizard also devotes an important part of his time to teaching: he has been a guitar teacher at the Nantes Conservatory since 1982, and has taught the guitar and chamber music at the Pont Supérieur, Bretagne-Pays de la Loire high school for music center, from 2011 to 2022.
His transcriptions are released by “L’Empreinte mélodiques“ Publishing house (J.P. Rameau, J.S. Bach, C. Debussy, P.I. Tchaïkovsky).
