Michel Godard
Encyclopedia
Héricourt, Haute-Saône
Héricourt is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France.-References:*...
, near Belfort
Belfort
Belfort is a commune in the Territoire de Belfort department in Franche-Comté in northeastern France and is the prefecture of the department. It is located on the Savoureuse, on the strategically important natural route between the Rhine and the Rhône – the Belfort Gap or Burgundian Gate .-...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) is a French tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
player and jazz musician.
Godard was admitted at the age of 18 to the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France. His ability to produce overtones ("multiphonics") and musicality leaves the listener surprised at how light a seemingly cumbersome tuba can sound. In 1979 he picked up also the ancestor of the tuba, the serpent
Serpent (instrument)
A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
.
On the classical side, Michel Godard played since 1988 with the Radio France
Radio France
Radio France is a French public service radio broadcaster.-Mission:Radio France's two principal missions are:* To create and expand the programming on all of their stations; and...
Philharmonic Orchestra, the French National Orchestra, the Ensemble Musique Vivante, and, recently, the ancient music Ensemble La Venice and "XVIII-21Musique de Lumieres". He was also a member of the "Arban Chamber Brass" quintet (notably touring Japan, the U.S., Africa) and interprets works from the solo repertory, too. He gives international master classes.
On the jazz side he was a member of the French National Jazz Orchestra from 1989 to 1991. Since then Godard has been involved in numerous creative projects with Michel Portal
Michel Portal
Michel Portal is a composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.Portal studied clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris...
, Louis Sclavis
Louis Sclavis
Louis Sclavis is a French jazz musician. He performs on clarinet, bass clarinet, and soprano saxophone in a variety of contexts, including jazz and free jazz...
, Enrico Rava
Enrico Rava
Enrico Rava , is a prolific jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He originally played trombone, changing to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s...
, Michael Riessler, Horace Tapscott
Horace Tapscott
Horace Tapscott was an American jazz pianist and composer. He formed the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1961 and led the ensemble through the 1990s...
, Christof Lauer
Christof Lauer
Christof Lauer is a German jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist, born in Melsungen, Germany, perhaps most well known in Europe where he has done projects with various musicians, such as Palle Danielsson, Carla Bley, Michel Godard, Volker Kriegel, Michel Portal, Maria Joao, Anthony Cox, Gary Husband,...
, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson (musician)
Ray Anderson is an independent jazz trombone and trumpet player. Anderson is a boisterous trombonist who is masterful at multiphonics. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as pushing the limits of the instrument. He is a contemporary and colleague of trombonist/composer...
, Rabih Abou-Khalil
Rabih Abou-Khalil
-Life:Rabih Abou-Khalil grew up in Beirut and moved to Munich, Germany during the civil war in 1978. He lives part-time in Munich and part-time in the South of France with his wife and two children.-Music:...
, Sylvie Courvoisier
Sylvie Courvoisier
Sylvie Courvoisier is a Swiss composer and pianist.Courvoisier was born and raised in Switzerland. In 1998, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she currently resides. She co-leads the Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman Quartet and leads her own quintet, Lonelyville, and the Trio Abaton...
, Simon Nabatov
Simon Nabatov
Simon Nabatov is a jazz pianist.He began playing at three and his first composition was at six. He began his professional career in Rome in 1979 and later attended the Juilliard School. In 1984 Keyboard Magazine named him Best Pianist. In 1989 he left New York City, where he had settled, for Cologne...
, Linda Sharrock
Linda Sharrock
Linda Sharrock is an American jazz singer....
, Pierre Favre, Misha Mengelberg
Misha Mengelberg
Misha Mengelberg is a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961.-Biography:...
, Gianluigi Trovesi
Gianluigi Trovesi
thumb|200px|Gianluigi Trovesi in 2006.Gianluigi Trovesi is an Italian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist and composer.A native of Nembro near Bergamo in Lombardy, he studied harmony and counterpoint under Vittorio Fellegara. Since then he has been a major player in the Italian and European jazz scene....
, Willem Breuker
Willem Breuker
Willem Breuker was a Dutch jazz bandleader, composer, arranger, saxophonist, and bass clarinetist....
, Gabriele Mirabassi
Gabriele Mirabassi
Gabriele Mirabassi is an Italian jazz clarinetist. In 1967 he was born in Perugia and is a graduate of the Morlacchi conservatory in that city. Mirabassi is active in contemporary music and is one of the founders of the Artisanat Furteux Ensemble....
, the ARTE Quartett
ARTE Quartett
The ARTE Quartett was founded in 1995 by the saxophonists Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti and Beat Kappeler.They are mainly committed to contemporary music and to jazz and free improvised music...
and more recently in a quartet with co-tubist Dave Bargeron
Dave Bargeron
David 'Dave' W Bargeron is an American trombonist and tuba player from Athol, Massachusetts, most famous for playing with the jazz-rock group Blood, Sweat, and Tears. He joined the group in 1970, after Jerry Hyman departed, and first appeared on the album Blood, Sweat & Tears 4...
.
As a composer, Michel Godard was commissioned by Radio France, Donaueschingen
Donaueschingen
Donaueschingen is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar Kreis. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Danube ....
Music Festival and French Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
Michel Godard also played and recorded with the pipeband of the Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
town Quimper, with reggae star Alpha Blondy
Alpha Blondy
Alpha Blondy is a reggae singer and international recording artist. Alpha Blondy was born Seydou Koné in Dimbokro, Côte d'Ivoire. He sings mainly in his native language of Dioula, in French and English, and sometimes in Arabic or Hebrew...
and with Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
rock musicians John Greaves
John Greaves
John Greaves was an English mathematician, astronomer and antiquary.-Life:He was born in Colemore, near Alresford, Hampshire. He was the eldest son of John Greaves, rector of Colemore, and Sarah Greaves...
and Pip Pyle
Pip Pyle
Phillip "Pip" Pyle was an English-born drummer from Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, who later resided in France...
.