Jan Grossmann studied harp playing (with Věnceslava Jandová) and composition (with Jaromír Podešva) at the Conservatory in Ostrava and passed his finals in 1972. He continued to study composition (with Jiří Dvořáček) at the Faculty of Music of the Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) in Prague and then (since 1975) at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno (with Miloslav Ištvan) and graduated in 1979.
In 1989 he started to work as a teacher at the Music Department of the Pedagogical Faculty at the Ostrava University, first as a specialised assistant and since 1993 as an assistant professor. A couple of years he was also teaching at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava. Since 2003 he has been teaching at the Natural Science Faculty at the Zilina University (the founder and head of the Department of Music).