A voyage of discovery through the personal survey of music of the Americas by the celebrated Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon. This recital will mark the UK launch of his new CD dedicated to composers from the Americas.
Fabio Zanon is one of the pre-eminent guitarists of today as well as a teacher, chamber player, conductor, author, and broadcaster.
Mr Zanon has been a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2009; he has also been a regular teacher at the Master Guitarra Alicante in Spain since 2014. In 2008 he was an artist-in-residence at the Royal Stockholm Conservatoire in Sweden. He's been a teacher-in-residence at the Lisbon-Estoril International Festival since 2011. He has given master classes at most prestigious schools in the USA, Canada, South America and Europe, including Juilliard and Gnessin School. Since 2014 MrZanon has been the artistic and educational director of the Campos do Jordão International Music Festival in Brazil, the largest classical music festival in South America, where he supervises orchestral and chamber practice of hundreds of orchestral students.
Mr Zanon had his musical education in his native Brazil, where his main teachers were his father and professors Antonio Guedes and Henrique Pinto. He holds a bachelor degree from University of São Paulo and a Master of Music degree from the University of London. He moved in 1990 to London where he studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Lewin, where he also attended master classes with Julian Bream and John Williams. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy Music, an accolade reserved for exceptionally distinguished alumni.
Although not greatly drawn to competitions, Mr Zanon had his career propelled with the first prize at both the Guitar Foundation of America in the USA and the Francisco Tarrega Competition in Spain in 1996. Prior to that he had been a top prize winner of competitions in Alessandria (Italy), Toronto and Havana.
As a soloist Mr Zanon has played in over 50 countries, at venues including Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, Weill Hall at Carnegie and 92nd Y in New York, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Philharmonie in St Petersburg, Les Invalides in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro Opera House, Amazonas Theatre, Sala Verdi in Milan, and KKL in Lucerne to name but a few. He has also regularly played at most major guitar and chamber music festivals around the world.
He has played over 40 concertos, many of them as world premieres, with orchestras such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Ulster Orchestra, RTÉ Symphony in Dublin, Israel Chamber Orchestra, I Fiamminghi, Evgeni Svetlanov State Orchestra in Moscow, and Salzburg Chamber Orchestra. With the São Paulo Symphony, he has recorded Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez and Francis Hime's Guitar Concerto, conducted by Alondra de la Parra, a recording nominated for a Latin Grammy award in 2011.
He is sought after as a chamber player, having played together with such distinguished musicians as violinists Nigel Kennedy, Nicolas Koeckert and Daishin Kashimoto, flautist Marcelo Barboza, oboist Alex Klein, and singers of all styles, ranging from soprano Carole Farley to folk/pop singers like Toquinho, Ney Mattogrosso and Maria Mulata.
He has also been recognised as a conductor and is perhaps the only guitarist who regularly performs as a soloist/conductor. He has directed the award-winning South American premiere of Michael Nyman's opera The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat. As a broadcaster he has conceived and presented over 200 programmes for Radio Cultura in São Paulo, many of whose have been adopted as teaching material at music schools in Brazil and Portugal.
Mr Zanon has recorded for labels such as Musical Heritage, Decca, and BIS and is now an exclusive GuitarCoop artist.
Presented by Poliphonia
Poliphonia is a charity founded in 2017 with the purpose of promoting the music of the Americas.
Through concerts, recordings, score restoration and education, Poliphonia aims to unlock exciting and diverse repertoire of the Americas to wider audiences. The revision and digitisation of scores still in manuscript form will be a key focus of the charity along with a commitment to commissioning new works and supporting younger musicians.
The charity has been established by one of Brazil’s leading classical musicians, pianist Clélia Iruzun along with Renato Martins, the violinist Nadia Myerscough, the cellist Nick Roberts and double bass player Sarah Neil.