The New Zealand based German flautist and conductor Uwe Grodd first gained worldwide recognition when he won First Prize at the Cannes Classical Awards 2000 for the Best Eighteenth Century Orchestral Recording with his CD of Symphonies by J.B. Vanhal (8.554341).

Grodd has been involved in more than fifty commissions of new music and conducted the premières of the New Zealand operas Galileo by John Rimmer / Witi Ihimaera and Len Lye: The Opera, by Eve de Castro-Robinson / Roger Horrocks. For four years he was Artistic Director of the International Music Festival NZ. A graduate of Mainz University, Germany, he studied with teachers of international repute, including, André Jaunet, Robert Aitken and Sergiu Celibidache.

He is Professor of Flute and Conducting at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.