Profile

Corrado Canonici has been awarded the 1993, 1997 and 1999 New York INMC Award, the Darmstadt Prize and the “Xenakis” Prize for Interpretation, Paris 1992.

He studied double bass – with Bruno Tommaso – and composition at the Conservatoire “G. Rossini” in Pesaro (Italy) and has attended both master classes for double bass held by Franco Petracchi, Luigi Milani and Gary Karr, and seminars of composition held by Hans Werner Henze and Brian Ferneyhough.

After several years of orchestral work, Corrado Canonici moved to a full solo career: in this vest he has given concerts in France, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland and the USA.

In the States he also held master classes at, amongst others, New York University (1996 Performer-in-Residence), Harvard University, Boston University, Arnold Schönberg Institute (University of Southern California) and the Manhattan School of Music.

He recorded two compact-discs for the Capstone Label (New York), one of them featuring the world première recording of a double bass work by Luciano Berio. Furthermore, a crossover CD is available, which he recorded as a duo with the former Charles Mingus’ and Ray Charles’ trumpeter, Jack Walrath.

His latest classical release sees him playing the monumental Alistair Hinton’s String Quintet plus soprano: a 2h45’ composition on a triple CD featuring Sarah Leonard, Jagdish Mistry, Marcus Barcham-Stevens, Levine Andrade, Michael Stirling. This recording was broadcast several times in its entirety by BBC Radio 3. Corrado also played in the CD “Brizzi do Brasil”, a best-seller album featuring Brazilian music sung by South American pop superstars such as Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso amongst others.

Corrado’s most recent CD is “A Roaring Flame”, the first bass recording entirely dedicated to British composers ever released in the UK – “showcase of Corrado Canonici’s startling virtuosity” (The Guardian).

On October 4, 1997, Canonici played the world première of the double bass version of “In Freundschaft” by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The concert was reviewed by The Strad: “This remarkable bass virtuoso showed himself to be a master of modern bass technique. (...) Canonici played it from memory and gave a riveting performance”. The Wire called him “Phenomenal bass player”; and the Sunday Times found his playing “Striking for the subtlety of interpretation”. The Double Bassist and The Strad magazines dedicated long features to Canonici’s musical career.

His solo repertoire features more than 100 works, including amongst others: Ferneyhough, Dillon, Donatoni, Xenakis, Cage, Scelsi, Rota, Dvorak, Paganini.

Corrado Canonici also plays with some of the leading UK ensembles: Lontano, Expose, Apartment House, Almeida, Endymion, Music Project/London, Matrix amongst others.

Nowadays Corrado is mainly involved in organisation: the director of World Concert Artists Ltd, an international booking agency representing musicians from a wide musical range.

Canonici was born in Italy and is currently living in London.

• Performances (1)