Curriculum of the organist Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet
Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet was born in Lille, France. She studied organ with Jeanne Joulain at the Conservatoire National de Région de Lille, and Jean Langlais at the Schola-Cantorum in Paris, where she obtained the best rewards and distinctions. At the Paris Conservatory, she received a First Prize in Organ (1978) and Fugue (1983) and a Second Prize in Counterpoint (1979), in the classes of Rolande Falcinelli, Jean- Paul Holstein, Pierre Lantier, Jean Lemaire and Michel Merlet. She studied improvisation with Daniel Roth à Saint-Sulpice.
After winning several international competitions: Albert Leveque Piano Bach Prize (Paris 1972), Albert Schweitzer International Organ Prize in Deventer (Netherlands 1980), at the age of seventeen, Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet was appointed titular organist at the Notre-Dame de l’Espérance Church in Paris.
At the age of eighteen, she performed her first recital at the Notre Dame Church in Versailles Since then, she has given many recitals in France (Paris Notre Dame, la Madeleine, Versailles, Rouen, l’Alpe d’Huez..), Europe and abroad (in 2012 at the Chalmers-Wesley in the city of Quebec in Canada, and in 2013 at the Palma Mallorca Basilica).
In 1989, Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet was appointed principal organist of the Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet Church in Paris where she directs the spiritual organ concerts. She performs recitals there each Christmas and Easter. Her repertoire is vast: extending from the Renaissance period to contemporary music. From 1981 to 2003, she taught organ, piano, and accompanied singing classes at the Noisy- le-Grand Conservatory (near Paris).
Her discography includes several Compact Discs, notably of the Great Organ of Saint- Nicolas du Chardonnet: before its restoration and its inaugural concert in 2009. In 2011, “April Moon” was recorded with the soprano Catherine Lieber on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Saint-Jean Church in Montmartre, to benefit the ”Tchernobyl Children – Belarus Association”.
In 2007, Europart released Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet’s edition of two volumes Claude Balbastre’s 40 organ pieces (a Versailles manuscript). She has also transcribed works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach and Tchaikovsky. In 2010, Delatour Editions published her edition of Balbastre’s D Major Concerto and his Trio for three hands with a CD.
Among her organ works, in 2009, Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet composed a Salve Regina and, in 2013, Prelude and Variations on “Puer Natus in Bethlehem”.