Andrea Marcon

Andrea Marcon is a conductor, organist, and harpsichordist and is one of the most renowned musicians and specialists in early music active today. Born in Treviso in 1963, he received a diploma in early music from Basel's Schola Cantorum for his organ and harpsichord studies with Jean-Claude Zehnder and conducting with Hans Martin Linde. Winning first prize at the organ competition in Innsbruck and first prize as harpsichordist in the Bologna competition, in 1983 he became both harpsichordist and organist of the Treviso-based early music ensemble Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca. It wasn't until 1997 that he founded the Venice Baroque Orchestra with some of Italy's finest instrumentalists, which has become one of the leading baroque ensembles in the world. His dedication to the discovery of Baroque masterpieces led to the first fully staged performance in modern times of Francesco Cavalli's opera L'Orione and Handel's Siroe. The Orchestra made its New York debut at the Lincoln Center in 2001 ahead of its 2002 debut at the BBC Proms in London. Further appearances include performances in Paris, Hamburg, Boston, Amsterdam, London, the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Carnegie Hall, the Frankfurt Opera and at festivals in Lucerne, Zurich, São Paulo, and Istanbul. Marcon himself has also given organ recitals in Milan, Dresden and Seoul. The Orchestra and Marcon recorded their first album, Andromeda liberata, for Archiv Produktion and performed it live at the inaugural Venice Music Festival in 2004. Tours and recordings have included collaborations with numerous soloists, including violinist Giuliano Carmignola, pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, violinist Viktoria Mullova, soprano Simone Kermes and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená.