Georges Grisez (31 March 1884 – March 1946) was a French-born American

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

ist. He was an active soloist, recording artist, and orchestral musician. Born in Paris, Grisez studied with Arthur Grisez and later at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning first prize in clarinet in 1902, before moving to the United States in October 1904. He served as principal clarinetist for the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

from 1904 to 1914 (the seventh principal of that group), and for the

Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...

for the 1922–23 season. He made several recordings on the Phono-Cut Label in 1913. He reportedly played

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

in the New York Symphony. He also played with the New York Chamber Music Society, New York Philharmonic, the Letz Quartet, the Grisez Woodwind Quintet, and the Georges Longy Club (based on a similar Parisian wind ensemble organized by Paul Taffanel). He performed the

Brahms Clarinet Quintet Johannes Brahms's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, was written in 1891 for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. It is scored for a clarinet in A with a string quartet. It has a duration of approximately thirty-five minutes. Background Clarine ...

with the Letz Quartet in the 1921 Maverick Concerts. He may have served as a musician in the French army during the First World War. He moved to Minnesota in 1923 to perform with the

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded originally as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, the Minnesota Orchestra plays most of its concerts at Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall. History Em ...

and later teach at the University of Minnesota. He was one of the first clarinetists to play with the

NBC Symphony The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ar ...

, alongside principal Alexander Williams. In the last years of his life, Grisez joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal. He died during a 1946 Baltimore concert, shortly after performing the clarinet

glissando In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the co ...

at the beginning of George Gershwin's '' Rhapsody in Blue''. His successor as principal,

Ricardo Morales Ricardo Morales (born 1972) is a classical clarinetist of Puerto Rican descent. Since 2003, he has been the principal clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Prior to that, he was the principal clarinetist at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. ...

, noted that the piece is "one of the scariest to play" for the first clarinetist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grisez, Georges 1884 births 1946 deaths Musicians from Paris Conservatoire de Paris alumni American classical clarinetists French classical clarinetists 20th-century classical musicians French emigrants to the United States