CLAUDIO ASTRONIO
Harpsichord, organ, conductor
Artistic Agency BAMA is very pleased to announce a new representation
of one of the most important Italian harpsichordists, organists and conductors, Claudio Astronio!
"The music shimmers, sparkles and dances; Astronio’s ability to convey a vocal line's character and emotional dynamic is incredibly beautiful, sensitive, and deeply touching without bordering on cloying sentimentality…"
Handel, Arias for Harpsichord - Fanfare, Jan 2003 USA
Claudio Astronio is an eclectic musician: he is a harpsichordist, organist, and conductor. He conducts mainly his early instruments ensemble, “Harmonices Mundi”, and performs regularly at the most prestigious festivals in Europe, the USA, Japan, Mexico and Canada. He has performed and conducted with such musicians as Emma Kirkby, Max Van Egmond, Dan Laurin, Gemma Bertagnolli, Susanne Ryden, and Gustav Leonhardt.
He has participated in numerous radio and television broadcasts all over the world: his several harpsichord and organ recordings have received many international awards from magazines like Musica, CD Classica, Amadeus, Musica, Classic Voice, Alte Musik Aktuelle, Diapason (Diapason d’Or 2003), Repertoire, Le monde de la musique (“Choc”, July 2001), El Paìs, Ritmo, Diverdi, Goldberg, Continuo and Fanfare, and Gramophone.
In 2007, his debut as opera conductor with Gluck’s “Orfeo e Euridice” produced by Ravenna Festival,
directed by Graham Vick and a stage version of Bach’s Matthaeus Passion in a dance project with the choreographer Ismael Ivo and with the London dance company of Henry Oguike. After the worldwide success of the recordings Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Harpsichord Concerts and the Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista by Alessandro Stradella (“This may be the finest recording to date of a vocal work by Stradella” New Olde, USA), he recently published for Brilliant Classics the Italian Arias and the Duets of the same author together with Emma Kirkby, Susanne Ryden, Martin Oro and Lisandro Abadie, which have been awarded as CD of the Month by the magazine MUSICA, and the duetti with Emma Kirkby and Sergio Foresti. In 2017, Brilliant Classics published the world premiere recording of the Complete Works for Keyboard by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, which gained several prizes, CD of the month and CD of the year in the USA. Since 2012, is the principal conductor of the THERESIA youth baroque orchestra,
mainly performing classic and pre-romantic symphonic repertoire with early instruments.
Among his musical interests are also Jazz and pop music; recently, he released with the jazz-singer Maria Pia de Vito, Michel Godard and Paolo Fresu the crossover CD “Coplas a lo divino”, among early music and improvisation together with other recent projects like “Napoli!” with Maria Pia and Michel, and Le chant du Serpent with Michel Godard, Lucas Niggli and Fanny Paccoud. His last two projects with the singer Laura Catrani face contemporary with baroque and are called “Highlands& Sea” and “Flowing Water”.
He held masterclasses in Tokyo, Oberlin Conservatoire and other Academies in Europe, USA, Japan and has been a guest teacher at the Royal College of Music in London: is member of the Doctorate Commission Board at Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and currently teaches harpsichord, historical keyboards and chamber music at the Conservatorio “A.Scontrino” in Trapani, where he’s also a member of Academic Council. Very active with Erasmus+ project and former member of the board of directors of the REMA (Reseau Europeen de Musique anciénne).
Recently his debut for the cinema: he has been main character in the movie “La Corda spezzata”, life and works of Alessandro Stradella directed by Francesco Leprino and orchestra conductor on stage in the movie “Zoroastro: io, Giacomo Casanova” with Galatea Ranzi, directed by Gianni di Capua. He is a member of the artistic commission of the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano and a founding member and artistic director of the early music festival “Antiqua” in Bolzano in the frame of Bolzanofestivalbozen.
You are welcome to visit Claudio's Spotify and YouTube channels.
