Michel Merlet

Michel Merlet (born 26 May 1939) is a French composer and pedagogue. Born in Saint-Brieuc, Merlet studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris, where his teacher was Tony Aubin. There he won prizes for harpsichord, chamber music, counterpoint, fugue, musical composition and musical analysis (in Olivier Messiaen's class). From 1978, he taught fugue there, succeeding Yvonne Desportes at this post. He won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1966. In 1979, he was in charge of teaching music writing at the International Japanese Summer Academy, and from 1985, he taught writing, orchestration, analysis and composition in China at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Beijing Conservatory. He has been professor of composition at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Schola Cantorum de Paris. In 1995, invited to Greece, he taught composition and orchestration at the Athens Conservatoire. In 2001, the "European American Musical Alliance" commissioned him to conduct masterclasses for students at several universities in the United States, including the Juilliard School. Merlet is a member of the juries of numerous international competitions, including the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition.