GORDON FANTINI

Professional Bassoonist and Bassoon Instructor

Gordon Fantini is currently Principal Bassoon, Section Leader at the Belgian National Orchestra in Bruxelles. He has collaborated with many orchestras in Switzerland such as the Verbier Chamber Festival Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (taking part of the CD recording under the baton of J. Nott), Berner Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and KammerOrchester Basel. He has had the opportunity to play on tour, collaborating with musicians including Heinz Holliger, Alison Balsom, Maria João Pires, Trevor Pinnock and Andreas Ottensamer in venues including Prinzregententheater (Munich), Liederhalle (Stuttgart), Tonhalle (Zürich), KKL (Lucerne) and Musikverein (Vienna). As a soloist, Gordon has performed Vivaldi’s “La Notte”, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and many performances of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto with the Ensemble “Accademia dell’Annunciata” of Abbiategrasso.

He started playing the bassoon at the age of 14, after 5 years of playing the piano. He began his studies in 2014 with Professor Leonardo Dosso in the Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi in his home-town of Milano where he achieved the Diploma with Laudae distinction. He furthered his studies with Sergio Azzolini, Carlo Colombo, Gilbert Audin, Gabriele Screpis, and Albrecht Holder.

He won the position of Solo Bassoon, Section Leader at the Belgian National Orchestra, Bruxelles in 2020. In 2019 he was the prize winner of the Vègh Sàndor Competition in Budapest, which will feature him as a soloist with the Budapest Festival Orchestra in the 2020-21 season. He also joined the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. He was invited in October to perform as principal bassoon at Teatro la Fenice in Venice. Prior to that, he was invited to perform as Co-Principal Bassoon in the Malaysian Philarmonic Orchestra. In 2017 he was selected for the Verbier Festival Orchestra performing under great conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Giannandrea Noseda, and Valery Gergiev. During that summer he auditioned for the Budapest Festival Orchestra winning the only place available, and began to collaborate with this orchestra in February 2019. Also in 2017, Gordon was invited to perform “Histoire du Soldat” by Stravinsky/Ramuz at the Château de Chillon in Switzerland, with musicians from the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with Michel Voïta, recording all the woodwind ensemble works of Richard Strauss at the Amiata Piano Festival in Tuscany. He has also participated in various Swiss festivals such as theGstaad Menuhin Festival (since 2015), Sion Festival by invitation of Pavel Vernikov (where he played with the Chamber Orchestra of Lettonie and the Choir of Moscow conducted by Dmitry Korchak). He also played in the “Feast of Duos” show with musical comedy duo Igudesman & Joo and Ray Chen.

​

In 2014 he earned the position of solo bassoon at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London where he performed on tour with the orchestra in venues including the Royal Albert Hall and Cadogan Hall.

In September 2012 he was also invited by the Chamber Music Society of Colombo (Sri Lanka) to play two concertos by Vivaldi and he was the first bassoon player to perform as soloist on the island. The Sunday Times wrote about him, “His mastery of the instrument was truly on display in this performance, as he showed us how wrong we are to suppose that the Bassoon is just a continuo instrument, which it was, till Vivaldi took it in hand.”

He has been conducted by many of the most known conductors in the world including: I. Fischer, Lahav Shani, P. Steinberg, K. Urbanski, C. Eschenbach, S. Byschov, L. Foster, A. Chauhan, D. L. Newman, F. Gabel, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Santuu-Matias Rouvali, D. Gatti, Trevor Pinnock, N. Järvi, S. S. Rattle, V. Gergiev, G. Noseda, J. van Sweden among many others.