The Belgian virtuoso flautist Marc Grauwels made his orchestral début at the age of nineteen with the Flemish Opera, while continuing study with James Galway and Jean-Pierre Rampal. In 1976 he joined the orchestra of the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels as a piccolo player, leaving in 1978 to take up the position of principal flautist in the Belgian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, which he held over the following ten years, while serving in 1986 in the same position in Carlo Maria Giulini’s World Orchestra. In 1987 he embarked fully on a career as a soloist, while teaching at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire for some fifteen years. He is now Professor at the Mons Royal Conservatoire. His eclecticism as an international soloist has inspired some hundred composers from all over the world to write especially for him, including Ennio Morricone, who dedicated to him his Cantata per l’Europa, Astor Piazzolla who wrote for him his History of the Tango in 1985, and more recently the Greek composer Yannis Markopoulos, who dedicated his Flute Concerto to Marc Grauwels, a work heard at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. His many recordings include important releases for Naxos.