Pianist and vocal coach FRANÇOIS GERMAIN has performed extensively in Europe, the United States and Canada as soloist and accompanist. Originally from Aix-en-Provence, France, he is the recipient of many awards, including first prizes in the Radio-France Competition, and the Paul and Verna Gelinas Competition. He studied at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud, and holds a master's and doctorate degrees in piano performance from the University of Montreal. Recent performances include such venues as the American Church in Paris, Steinway Hall in New York, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Atheneum in Athens.

 

A native French and German speaker, he specializes in French mélodie, lied and art song. He served from 2002-2007 at the University of Montreal as a graduate vocal coach and assistant to Rosemarie Landry (a disciple of Pierre Bernac and Gerard Souzay) where he acquired a unique expertise in French lyric diction and style. He is a founder and editor of the website dictionpolice.com which provides practical multimedia language and diction tools for classical singers. He has given Masterclasses and workshops on French repertoire in Europe and throughout the United States.

 

Currently a full-time member of the Conservatory Faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, he is the Managing Director of CIM Opera Theater, and provides vocal coaching, literature and language training to undergraduate and graduate students.

 

Since 2017, he has been on the music staff of the Semperoper in Dresden, Germany as a guest vocal and language coach for new French productions.

For the past ten years, Dr. Germain has also been on the Faculty of the University of Miami Frost School of Music Summer Program in Salzburg, Austria, one of Europe's longest running and most respected programs of its kind for singers and vocal pianists.

 

Prior to his engagement at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2019, Dr. Germain was an associate professor of piano and vocal coaching at the Crane School of Music at SUNY, Potsdam in New York, where he was the head of the piano department, and on the music staff of the Crane Opera Ensemble. 

 

In addition to his performance and teaching activities, Dr. Germain holds a master's degree in political science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences-Po) where he researched the socio-political context of Dimitri Shostakovich's work and the relationship between Soviet composers and the cultural authorities of the time.

His principal teachers include Marc Durand, Jean Saulnier, Bernard Flavigny and Clara Woringer-Kastler, and he has taken part in master classes with such greats as Boris Berman, Thomas Grubb, Roger Vignoles, and Malcolm Martineau.