Maryse Legault holds a master's degree from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag in historical clarinet performance with Eric Hoeprich. She has joined numerous ensembles and performed under conductors such as John Butt, Alexander Weimann, Teodor Currentzis and François-Xavier Roth. One of the only Canadians to play period clarinets, and the first Quebec graduate in her field, she is renowned for her impressive technique, which defies historical standards of clarinet performance, as well as for her bold repertoire choices and the flexibility and expressiveness of her interpretations. Her research focuses on the virtuoso clarinet repertoire at the turn of the 19th century. This interest led her to write her master's thesis on clarinetist Josef Beer (1744-1812), and prompted her to undertake doctoral studies in musicology at McGill University. She was invited to share her findings as a guest lecturer at Oxford University in 2017.
Maryse is the recipient of a Sylva Gelber Foundation Award for Music and has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Research Grant from SSHRC, as well as an OICRM Doctoral Fellowship. She was also awarded the Early Music America Summer Fellowship and supported by Jeunesses Musicales of Canada between 2016 and 2021. In addition, she received the Schulich School of Music Scholarship upon acceptance into the doctoral program and is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and CALQ.
Legault premiered her first piece for clarinet, live signal processing and fixed media, A Hundred Waves, based on the sound universe of synthesizer pioneer Suzanne Ciani, at live@CIRMMT in December 2022. She is also collaborating with composer, sound and video artist Pierre-Luc Lecours to create a series of progressive studies for the modular synthesizer.
