Michel Moragues

Biography

Biography

Michel Moragues enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and educator. Second flute soloist with the Orchestre National de France since 1989, Mr. Moragues is a Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris and a professor of flute at the Conservatoire Regional de Paris.

Michel entered the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, in the class of Jean Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion at age 14, and two years later, in 1979, won first prize for flute and first prize for chamber music in the class of Christian Lardé. In 1978, he won the International Competition of the Guild of Artists Soloists of Paris, then in 1981, the International Competition in Budapest.

Michel began his teaching career at the age of 17 as a flute professor at the National School of Music at Chalon. Since then, he has taught at the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint Maur des Fosses, and the International Academy of Les Arcs. In addition to his current posts at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and Conservatoire Regional de Paris, Michel Moragues is highly sought after as a master clinician around the world.

An avid chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Quintette Moragues, which he formed in 1980 with his two brothers Pierre and Pascal, David Walter and Patrick Vilaire, and which performs world-wide to great acclaim. Michel Moragues also has collaborated in chamber music with partners such as Barbara Hendricks, Sandrine Piau, Nora Gubbich, Shlomo Mintz, Regis Pasquier, Gerard Poulet, Raphael Oleg, Gerard Causse, Bruno Pasquier, Nicolas Angelich, Philippe Cassard, Dalberto, Claire Desert, Brigitte Engerer, Christian Ivaldi, Naoumoff Emile, Jean claude Pennetier, Alain Planes, Emmanuel Strosser, Alexandre Tharaud, Pascal Rogé, Christoph Henkel, Anne Gastinel, Roland Pidoux, Xavier Phillips, Marc Coppey, Jerome Perno, Frédérique Cambreling, Christine Icart, Isabelle Moretti, Marielle Nordman, Julie Palloc, Melanie Dutreil, or the Ysaÿe Quartet, Parisii, Elysee, Kocian, Sine Nomine, Psophos, Manfred, and the Trio Wanderer.

As an orchestral musician, Mr. Moragues has performed under the baton of conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, John Elliot Gardinner, Neeme, Christian, and Paavo Jarvi, Eugen Jochum , Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Georges Pretre, Kurt Masur, and David Zinman.

The discography of Michel includes an album of Ravel/Cras with Isabelle Moretti in Auvidis Valois, a disc with Mozart's Quintet Moragues which won the Grand Prix of the Charles Cros Academy, and a recording with Saphyr productions of the poems of Ronsard by Albert Roussel with Sandrine Piau, which was hailed by the journal World of Music in July 2006, as "the most beautiful version to date."

Michel was the founder and director of the festival "Music in Grésivaudan" from 1993 to 2003, and currently directs the summer festival of chamber music from Gourdon (Lot) with other members Moragues Quintet.