Conductor, organist, and harpsichordist Andrea Marcon was born in Treviso. He received a diploma in Early Music from Basel’s Schola Cantorum Basiliensis for his organ and harpsichord studies with Jean-Claude Zehnder and conducting with Hans Martin Linde. He won first prize in the organ competition at Innsbruck in 1986 and, in 1991, first prize for harpsichord at Bologna. He also studied with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Hans van Nieuwkoop, Jesper Christensen, Harald Vogel and Ton Koopman.
Mr. Marcon founded the Venice Baroque Orchestra (VBO) in 1997 and has since led the group to international acclaim. His dedication to the rediscovery of Baroque opera led to the first modern-day stagings of Francesco Cavalli’s L’Orione (1998), Handel’s Siroe (2000), Cimarosa’s L’Olimpiade (2001) and Galuppi’s L’Olimpiade (2006). In April 2004, Mr. Marcon conducted the United States premiere of Siroe at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In spring 2008 he conducted 20 sold-out performances of a new production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo with La Cetra in Basel.
Today Mr. Marcon is widely recognized as a leading interpreter of the Baroque and Classical periods. He is a regular guest conductor at the Frankfurt Opera, and he has been invited by the WDR, HR, NDR symphony orchestras, Orchestre Nationale de Montecarlo, Luzern Sinfonie Orchester, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, and Bremer Philharmoniker. He has been heralded for his performances of Marcello’s Il trionfo della Musica e della Poesia; Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso, Atenaide, Tito Manlio, Gloria, Magnificat, Juditha Triumphans; Cavalli’s Calisto and Giasone; Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Vespers; Handel’s Messiah, Ariodante and Alcina; and Bach’s cantatas and Mass in B minor. His repertoire also spans Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert symphonies and early Rossini operas.
Highlights of recent seasons included a tour to Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Brussels, London, Amsterdam and Rotterdam with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená; performances of the Messiah in Granada, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in Musikverein with Anna Netrebko and Andreas Scholl; Charpentier’s Medee in Frankfurt, Monteverdi’s Vespers in Schwetzingen and Spain; and a tour across the United States with Giuliano Carmignola and the VBO. He brought together for the first time violinists Viktoria Mullova and Giuliano Carmignola for performances of Baroque double concertos in France, Spain and Austria; toured as organist and conductor several times in Japan, and recently worked with Philippe Jaroussky in Hannover. In August 2007 he conducted Cecilia Bartoli and the VBO in Handel arias at the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona and made his debut at the Salzburg Festival. He leads one opera production per year at the Frankfurt opera and with La Cetra in Basel.
Mr. Marcon has recorded more than 50 CDs. For his recordings as organist and harpsichordist he has been awarded four times with the Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik prize. Mr. Marcon’s recordings as conductor have also received several accolades, including the Diapason D’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, the Vivaldi Award of the Cini Foundation, Germany’s Echo Award and the Edison Prize. For Sony Classical, he recorded seven albums from 1999 through 2003—as conductor of the VBO with Giuliano Carmignola and mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, and as harpsichordist with Mr. Carmignola and Anner Bylsma. For Deutsche Grammophon, releases to date include Andromeda liberata, two albums of Baroque concertos with Mr. Carmignola, albums of Vivaldi motets and opera arias with soprano Simone Kermes, string concertos and sinfonias of Vivaldi, and CDs of Handel and Vivaldi arias with Magdalena Kožená.
The latest release in May 2010 includes arias with Patricia Petibon and Venice Baroque Orchestra.
Mr. Marcon is professor of harpsichord, organ and interpretation at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. In 1982 he was founding harpsichordist and organist for the Treviso-based ensemble, Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca (1982-1997). He also founded and served as artistic director of the International Organ Festival “Città di Treviso,” where he helped facilitate the restoration of the city’s historic organs. In 2009 the San Salvador church in Venice, where he helped the reconstruction of the renaissance organ rebuild by Juergen Ahrend, nominated him Maestro di Cappella.
