Biography

Claudio Astronio is an eclectic musician: he is harpsichordist and organist and conductor. He actually conducts mainly his early instruments ensemble “Harmonices Mundi” and performed regularly by the most prestigious festivals in Europe, USA, Japan and Canada. He has performed and conducted with such musicians as Emma Kirkby, Max Van Egmond, Dan Laurin, Gemma Bertagnolli, Susanne Ryden, Yuri Bashmet and Gustav Leonhardt. He has participated in numerous radio and television broadcasts allover the world : his several recordings have received many international awards from magazines like Musica, CD Classica, Amadeus, Musica, Classic Voice, Alte Musik Aktuelle, Diapason, 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 coreographer Ismael Ivo and with the london dance company of Henty Oguike as well.

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 of the same authors, together with 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.

Since 2012 is principal conductor of the THERESIA youth baroque orchestra, mainly performing classic and pre-romantic rsymphonic 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. He held masterclasses in Tokyo, Oberlin Conservatoire and other academies in Europe, USA, Japan and currently teaches harpsichord and chamber music at the Conservatorio “A.Scontrino” in Trapani

He is the founding member and artistic director of the early music festival “Antiqua” in Bolzano.