Maurice Clerc

Maurice Clerc has given about 800 concerts in more than twenty countries, while he also made sixteen tours through North America (the U.S. and Canada). While travelling through four continents in twenty-five years, he played in numerous places of fame, such as the Notre-Dame in Paris, Saint-Patrick's Cathedral in New York, the Dom in Lübeck, the San Marco basilica in Venice, the Saint-Joseph Oratoire in Montreal, Saint-Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, the Auditorium of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation, the NHK, in Tokyo and the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong. In 1987 he was invited to give two concerts on the occasion of the inauguration of the great Flentrop organ in the new auditorium of Taipei. In 1999 he visited Seoul for the organists convention.

In his international career he was also asked to play at renowned festivals, such as those held in Bruges, Ravenna, Madrid, Paris (Saint- Eustache), Avignon, Milstatt, Frankfurt, Buda-pest, Luxem-bourg and New Zealand.
Born in 1946 in Lyon, Maurice Clerc studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris with Suzanne Chaisemartin.
After that he studied at the 'Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique', also in Paris, where in 1975 he obtained a 'Premier Prix' for organ in the class of Rolande Falcinelli.

He continued his studies with Gaston Litaize and for several subsequent years he followed the improvisation course of Pierre Cochereau at the 'Académie Internationale' in Nice. In 1977 he obtained the 'Prix d'Improvisation' during the international contest in Lyon.
At Christmas 1972 he was appointed as the 'organist titulaire' of the Saint-Bénigne's Cathedral in Dijon. In addition, he is a teacher at the 'Conservatoire National' of the region of Dijon and he taught a course at the university for twenty years.

Maurice Clerc has made numerous recordings dedicated to Bach and the German masters of the baroque. However, as a specialist of the French music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, he also attaches great value to recording the important works of Franck, Vierne, Dupré, Fleury, Langlais and recently also Cochereau.