Marcel Just Théodore Marie Couraud (20 October 1912 in Limoges – 14 September 1986 in Loches) was a French orchestral and choral conductor and organist.
Couraud studied organ with André Marchal in Paris where he attended the Ecole Normale de Musique.
[1] In 1944 he founded the Ensemble Vocal Marcel-Couraud, with whom he performed chansons and madrigals of the Renaissance period (including Orlando di Lasso and Claudio Monteverdi) as well as works by contemporary composers such as Trois Petites Liturgies de la présence divine by Olivier Messiaen.
[2] From 1967, he was director of the choir of the broadcaster ORTF of Paris,[3] with whom he revived forgotten master works by Schubert and Brahms and baroque composers.
He directed the premieres o works such as Cinq Rechants by Messiaen (1950), the Dodécaméron by Ivo Malec (1971), Récitatif, air et variations of Gilbert Amy, Nuits by Iannis Xenakis (1968) and the Sonata à douze by Betsy Jolas (1971) and pieces by Barraud, Dao, Ohana and Petrassi.