Born in 1986, Élodie Soulard began studying the accordion near the city of Clermont-Ferrand, then attended the Conservatoire du XIIe arrondissement de Paris, studying under Max Bonnay. She went on to study at the CNSM de Paris where her outstanding performance earned her the degree of Master d’Accordéon in 2010. The following year, she began a pre-doctoral program under the direction of pianist and orchestra conductor Jean-François Heisser. During this time, she also received enlightened advice from numerous masters around Europe and worked diligently beside Russian concert accordionist Yuri Shishkin.

With support from the Fondation Safran, Élodie is regularly invited to perform as a soloist on major stages at home and abroad: Salle Pleyel (Paris), Cité de la Musique (Paris), Folle Journée de Nantes, Folle Journée de Tokyo, Festival de l’Empéri, Festival Berlioz, Festival Radio France et Montpellier, Festival Toulouse les Orgues, the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Philharmonic Center in Rostov-on-Don (Russia), and the Seoul Arts Concert Hall (South Korea).

Her immense artistic talent is evidenced in her broad repertoire ranging from Bach to Ligeti to contemporary works for the accordion by Kusyakov, Gubaidulina, Berio, Lindberg, and Ibarrondo. She has also penned numerous transcriptions – for one, two, and even three accordions – of the pianistic and orchestral works of Berlioz, Schumann, de Falla, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev.

Élodie’s chamber music partners include Emmanuel Pahud, Laurent Korcia, Eric-Maria Couturier, and well as cellist Raphaël Pidoux with whom she recorded for the label Integral. She is a member of the orchestra Les Siècles as well as the ensemble C Barré; she regularly plays with the Radio France philharmonic orchestra, the Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, and the ensemble 2e2m.

Élodie Soulard plays a V. Gusiev model accordion manufactured by Jupiter Ltd., Moscow.