Jean-François Taillard began his musical studies with Robert Faller at the Conservatoire de Musique in La Chaux-de-Fond (Switzerland), his hometown. He continued his studies at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Geneva under the tutelage of Gregory Cass, where he was awarded the First Prize in French Horn performance in 1985.
In 1984, Jean-François Taillard was named second Horn of the Radiosinfonieorchester Basel, before finishing his studies. Two years later he was appointed Principal Horn in the same orchestra. He is currently Principal Horn of the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
Mr. Taillard has received the Swiss Youth Musical Award, the Bela Siki Prize, and is a laureate of the Skene Aberdeen Festival Competition (Scotland).
In addition to his work with the Basel Brass Quintet, Jean-François Taillard performed regularly with the Novus Brass Quartet, the Swiss Wind Quintet, and the Swiss Soloists.
Jean-François Taillard is a very active musical arranger, he provided arrangements for the Basel Brass Quintet, the GECA brass (Saint-Louis, France) as well as for renowned orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
Mr. Taillard’s arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is featured on a Sinfonieorchester Basel’s CD exclusively dedicated to the works of Ravel.
An entire CD of Jean-François Taillard’s arrangements for very large brass ensemble (six trumpets, four horns, four trombones, two tubas, and percussion) under the direction of Fred Mills (formerly of the Canadian Brass) has been released 2003.
Jean-François Taillard is playing on a Reto Spada Horn (unique model). He is also playing on a Andreas Jungwirth Vienna horn, an historic Courtois Horn (1820) and a Egger baroque horn.