Grégoire Rolland

Composer and organist Grégoire Rolland holds a Master’s degree in Music Theory (harmony, counterpoint, and fugue), a First Prize in Musical Analysis, a Master’s degree in Organ Performance, and a First Prize in Orchestration from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He also earned a Master’s degree in Composition from the Haute École de Musique de Genève and a Bachelor’s degree in Music and Musicology from Sorbonne University. During his higher education, he had the opportunity to study with Olivier Latry, Michel Bouvard, Fabien Waksman, Pierre Pincemaille, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Lefebvre, Michael Lévinas, Marc-André Dalbavie, Denis Cohen, Pascal Dusapin, and Michaël Jarrell.

Writing for both solo instruments and orchestra, Rolland draws his inspiration primarily from three sources: nature, Gregorian chant, and Asian culture, for which he has a deep passion. He also explores the relationships between music and the other arts, combining expressive language with compositional techniques inspired by rhetoric, literature, painting, and photography. For several years, he has developed a compositional approach that integrates the temporal process of writing Asian ideograms with the unfolding of the musical forms they suggest. His research also focuses on biomimicry and soundscapes.

He has received numerous composition awards, including prizes at the Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, Évreux, Fondation de Lacour, Orchestre de Caen, and Vienna Cathedral composition competitions (First Prize), and was named a laureate of the Superphoniques 2024 competition. His music has been commissioned by leading institutions such as Musique Sacrée à Notre-Dame de Paris, the Fondation de Lacour, the Choir and Orchestra of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the Les Très Riches Heures de l'Orgue en Berry Festival, Toulouse les Orgues, Radio France, Sylvanès Abbey, the La Bâtie Festival (Geneva), the Chaillol Festival, the Nouveaux Horizons Festival, Musique Sacrée en Avignon, the vocal ensemble Sequenza 9.3, the Dulci Jubilo Chamber Choir, and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. He was appointed Composer-in-Residence at the Auditorium-Orchestre National de Lyon for the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 seasons.

His works have been performed throughout Europe—including France, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Austria—as well as in the United States and Japan. They have been interpreted by distinguished artists including Pierre Bleuse, Nil Venditti, Philippe Brocard, Alphonse Cemin, Jean Deroyer, the Girard Quartet, Wolfgang Kogert, Olivier Latry, Isabelle Demers, David Molard, Raphaëlle Moreau, Thierry Maeder, Marie-Ange Nguci, Thomas Ospital, Maxime Pascal, and Tobias Willi. Several recordings are devoted to his music, notably the monographic albums Les Sacrements (2020, Hortus), Shēng (2022, Anima Nostra), and Cordes tressées (2025, Hortus), all of which have received critical acclaim.

Acclaimed as a recitalist both in France and internationally, Rolland was awarded the Banque Populaire Foundation Prize in 2016, the Académie des Beaux-Arts Prize for Musical Composition in 2021, and the Francis and Mica Salabert Prize as part of the SACEM Pulsations Contemporaines Awards in 2026. Appointed Titular Organist of Aix-en-Provence Cathedral in March 2018, he is also Professor of Composition and Orchestration at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional of Avignon and Professor of Music Theory and Analysis at the Haute École de Musique de Genève.