Raymond Guiot is a French flautist, composer and teacher born in Roubaix on October 5, 1930, whose singular career navigates between classical music and modern explorations. A student of Marcel Moyse at the Paris Conservatoire, he won a Premier Prix in flute at the age of 16 in 1947. A few months later, he joined the Opéra de Lille as piccolo, working under Fernand Oubradous and Georges Prêtre for three years, during which time he performed a wide operatic and operetta repertoire. A teacher at the École nationale de musique de Calais from 1950 to 1956, he prepared for the Geneva International Competition on his own, winning first prize in 1954. In 1956, he joined the Garde républicaine de Paris and embarked on a career as a soloist and orchestral musician. Appointed principal flute at the Paris Opéra in 1962, he held this position until 1991. In the 1960s and 1970s, he also pursued an intense activity as a studio musician, taking part in up to three sessions a day and signing some twenty albums of musical illustration for the Tele Music label, including Bach Street (1965), Scarlatti Sounds (1968), Jazz Baroque Quintet (1970) and Flûtes & Harpes (1974). A sought-after accompanist, he collaborated with jazz figures such as André Hodeir, Baden Powell, Maxim Saury and Elek Bacsik, and recorded on several film soundtracks, although rarely credited. In 1977, he became Alain Marion's assistant at the Paris Conservatoire, helping to train a new generation of flautists. Raymond Guiot has also composed extensively, especially for flute and piano, with teaching pieces widely used in conservatories. His best-known works include the Études Progressives, Préludes Modernes and Jazz Baroque series. On July 11, 2025, Raymond Guiot died in Paris at the age of 94.
