Uwe Grodd is a musician who seems to do everything except make his own instruments: he is a conductor, flutist, professor, and researcher. He is a specialist in Classical- and Postclassical-period music, especially that of Beethoven's student Ferdinand Ries, and his recordings are fixtures of the Naxos label's catalog.

Grodd was born in Stuttgart, West Germany, on November 29, 1958. He attended the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, studying linguistics and psychology. Then he switched to music, taking conducting lessons in Ludwigsburg from Manfred Schreier and studying flute with Werner Peschke. He continued on in both those fields, studying with conductor Sergiu Celibidache (whom he regards as a special influence) and flutist and composer Robert Aitken. After attending various master classes, Grodd rounded out his education with a stint at the Banff Center in Canada. He toured internationally as a conductor and flutist for a time, and a defining event in his career occurred in 1986 when he appeared with the Auckland Philharmonia in front of 250,000 spectators on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to New Zealand. Grodd settled permanently in New Zealand, and in 1993, he became music director of the Manukau Symphony Orchestra. He often appeared with major New Zealand orchestras as both a conductor and a flutist. Between 1998 and 2002, he served as artistic director of the International Music Festival New Zealand. He has been heard more than 60 times on Radio New Zealand. Grodd made his recording debut in 1998, conducting the Failoni Chamber Orchestra in a recording of sinfonias by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf for the Naxos label.

Grodd has conducted various groups in New Zealand, including the Radio Nelson Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestral Summer School at the Aotea Center in Auckland, the St. Matthews Chamber Orchestra, and, since 2008, the Auckland Choral Society. He has also appeared in his native Germany, leading the Handel Festival in Halle in 2003. That year, he began, as conductor, a series of albums devoted to Ries; the series has featured various orchestras (most prominently the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) and pianists, but all the releases have appeared on Naxos. Grodd has also led recorded performances of works by such composers as Hummel, Johann Baptist Vanhal, and Josef Martin Kraus. He has also recorded as a flutist, issuing two albums of Hummel's chamber arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies in the early 2020s. By 2022, his catalog comprised more than 25 recordings. Grodd is professor emeritus of music at the University of Auckland. ~ James Manheim, Rovi