French musician Michel Godard enjoys a reputation as a master of the tuba and of its Renaissance predecessor, the serpent. He is equally renowned in jazz and improvised music circles as well as in the classical and early music spheres. Since 2002 he is the serpent teacher at the Conservatoire national de musique in Paris. Since the start of his career in the late 1980s, he has appeared with the Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra, the French National Orchestra and with leading French early music ensembles. He was a member of the Arban Chamber Brass quintet and has also appeared as a soloist on both the jazz and the avant-garde scenes in Europe.
On the jazz side he was a member of the French Orchestre National de Jazz. He has been involved in numerous projects in western and southern Europe with musicians such as Michel Portal, Louis Sclavis, Henry Texier, Enrico Rava, Michael Riessler, Kenny Wheeler, Ray Anderson, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Sylvie Courvoisier, Klaus König, Simon Nabatov, Wolfgang Puschnig, Linda Sharrock, Pierre Favre, Misha Mengelberg, Linda Bsiri, Gianluigi Trovesi, Christof Lauer, Maria Pia De Vito, Pino Minafra, Luciano Biondini, Willem Breuker, Herbert Joos, Dave Bargeron and many more.
As a composer, Michel Godard has received commissions from Radio France, the Donaueschingen Musiktage and the French Ministry of Culture. He has recorded many portrait albums and appears on recordings with colleagues from numerous diverse musical genres.
