Giovanni Antonini

Born in Milan in 1965, the Italian flautist and conductor Giovanni Antonini formed the baroque music ensemble Il Giardino Armonico in 1985 with Luca Pianca and then collaborated with the Basel Chamber Orchestra (Switzerland) for a complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies (2005-2018). Trained at the Centre de musique ancienne de Genève, he specializes in 17th and 18th century repertoires, played on period instruments. An internationally renowned flautist, he played with Gustav Leonhardt and Christophe Coin, with whom he collaborated within Il Giardino Armonico, whose contract with the Teldec label materialized with a series of recordings of works by Vivaldi, including the concerto The Four Seasons (1994). An instrumentalist and conductor, he performs with his ensemble at the greatest Baroque music festivals and conducts operas by Monteverdi (L'Orfeo), Handel (Agrippina, Acis, Galatea e Polifemo) and Pergolesi (La Serva padrona). In 2004, Simon Rattle invited him to conduct the Berliner Philharmoniker, after collaborations with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Settimane Bach of Milan and the Camerata Academica Salzburg. In addition, the Italian conductor has participated in the conduction of several recitals by Cecilia Bartoli and Julia Lezhneva, as well as the violinists Viktoria Mullova and Isabelle Faust, the cellist Sol Gabetta and the flautist Emmanuel Pahud. Alongside his tenure with the Basel Chamber Orchestra (2005-2018), Giovanni Antonini began a cycle of performances of Josef Haydn's symphonies, which he plans to conclude in 2032 for the 300th anniversary of the composer's birth. The project, entitled Haydn 2032, sees the release of multiple volumes under the Alpha label, brought together in a first 10-CD box set in 2022. Giovanni Antonini's activity remains very busy in 2020, a year that sees the release of the albums What's Next Vivaldi by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, which he conducts, as well as the compilation of Beethoven's symphonies cycle for the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, and finally the personal recital Vivaldi: Concerti per flauto, awarded a new Diapason d'or. Between two releases of the Haydn 2032 project, a public recording of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater was released in 2025, with Anna Netrebko and Magdalena Kožená.