French and Swiss flautist Emmanuel Pahud began studying music at the age of six. He graduated in 1990 with the Premiere Prix from the Paris Conservatoire, and went on studying with Aurèle Nicolet. He won 1st Prize at the Duino, Kobe and Geneva Competitions.

Emmanuel appears regularly at prominent concert series, festivals and orchestras worldwide, and has collaborated as a soloist with leading conductors such as Abbado, Antonini, Barenboim, Boulez, Fischer, Gergiev, Gardiner, Harding, Järvi, Maazel, Nézét-Séguin, Orozco-Estrada, Perlman, Pinnock, Rattle, Rostropovich, Zinman.

Emmanuel is a dedicated chamber musician and regularly gives recitals with pianists Eric Le Sage, Alessio Bax, Yefim Bronfman, Hélène Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, as well as jazzing with Jacky Terrasson. In 1993, Emmanuel founded the Summer Music Festival in Salon de Provence together with Eric Le Sage and Paul Meyer, which is still a unique chamber music festival today. He also continues chamber music performances and recordings with “Les Vents Français”, one of the premiere wind quintets featuring François Leleux, Paul Meyer, Gilbert Audin and Radovan Vlatkovic.

He is committed to expanding the flute repertoire and commissions new flute works every year to composers such as Elliott Carter, Marc-André Dalbavie, Thierry Escaich, Toshio Hosokawa, Michaël Jarrell, Philippe Manoury, Matthias Pintscher, Christian Rivet, Eric Montalbetti and Luca Francesconi.

Since 1996, Emmanuel has recorded 40 albums exclusively for EMI / Warner Classics, which all have received unanimous critical acclaim and awards, resulting in one of the most significant contributions to recorded flute music.

Emmanuel was honoured to receive the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contribution to music, and is HonRAM of the Royal Academy of Music. He also is an Ambassador for Unicef.