Peter Bassano

Contact details

Hunts Green Chase Potter Row near Great Missenden Bucks HP16 9LT
email: pbassano@aol.com
website: www.peterbassano.com

home: 01494 868240
mobile: 07985 101244
work:
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More about Peter

“...a conductor of high artistic standards”
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director, Philharmonia Orchestra

Peter Bassano is currently Music Director of the Oxford University Sinfonietta and Brass Band, the City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, the professional choir, The Gentlemen of the Chappell and the Wendover Choral Society.

He has been active as a performer at the highest professional level for more than thirty years. Peter is descended from a family of Venetian wind players brought to England by King Henry VIII in 1540. He studied trombone and singing at the Royal College of Music, where, from 1978 until 2004 he was Professor of Trombone and Sackbut and for his last eleven years, Head of Brass.

He played the trombone with the Philharmonia Orchestra for more than twenty years, but retaining an interest in music outside of the standard symphonic repertoire playing in David Munrow`s Early Music Consort, the English Baroque Soloists, the Gabrieli Consort and His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts, London Sinfonieta, Beatles, Bee Gees, Pink Floyd, as well as the brass ensembles like Philip Jones and Equale Brass who made seven commercial recordings, toured world-wide, and commissioned twenty seven new works.

For more than two decades he has maintained a parallel career as a conductor having periods of study with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Elgar Howarth, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Roger Norrington, Jorma Panula and Bramwell Tovey.

He has appeared as guest conductor with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Hong Kong Academy, Imperial College, London University, National Youth Wind, RCM Symphony Orchestra, RCM Sinfonietta, Royal Omani, Ulster Youth orchestras. As a choral conductor he has led the Charterhouse, Melbourne Philharmonic, RCM Chamber choirs.

As a brass specialist he has conducted Besses’ o’ th’ Barn, Brighouse and Rastrick, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Leyland Band, Royal Welsh College of Music Band, Salford University Band, London Brass and Royal Philharmonic Brass. He was Music Director of the City of Cambridge Band from 2006-09, the RCM Brass Ensemble and in 2001 formed the first RCM Brass Band, now known as Zone One
.
In addition he has coached the brass sections of the Amadeus, Britten/Pears, Imperial College, London University, Royal Holloway, Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestras.

Peter Bassano has given master-classes at the Brisbane, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Paris, Sibelius (Helsinki), Stockholm, Sydney Conservatoires and lectured at Cambridge, Duke, Indiana, Open, Oxford, Salford, Queens and York Universities.

As an adjudicator and examiner Peter Bassano has adjudicated for the BBC Young Musician of the Year, EU Music Competitions for Youth, Royal Over-Seas League Competition, Brass Competitions at Birmingham Conservatoire, Charterhouse, Eton, RAM, Royal Philharmonic Society. As a brass band adjudicator he appears regularly at many competitions,including European, Midlands, Northern Ireland, Norwegian, Scottish, South West and the Championship Section of the Yorkshire Area Brass Band on which 4barsrest commented "...one of the best five minute speeches heard at any time at a brass band contest".

As an external examiner he has been engaged by nearly all of the UK conservatoires and from 2006-2010 was external examiner for all brass instruments at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Peter Bassano is a champion of new music having conducted numerous first performances including five brass band commissions. He has lectured at a number of well known universities and published research on topics as diverse as Beethoven, Byrd, Shakespeare and Veronese.