Camerata Salzburg & Giovanni Guzzo
Biography Camerata Salzburg & Giovanni Guzzo
Giovanni Guzzo
has been concertmaster of CAMERATA Salzburg since 2021. Born in Venezuela to Italian-Venezuelan parents, this versatile musician is highly regarded in the international music world as a violin soloist, chamber musician, concertmaster, and conductor.
He has performed as a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as a chamber musician with Joshua Bell, Martha Argerich, Martin Fröst, Miklós Perényi, Daniel Hope, Stephen Hough, Mats Lidström, and Gerhard Schulz, as well as with the Maggini and Takács Quartets, and as concertmaster and musical director with leading orchestras and chamber orchestras. The musician has performed at music centers such as Wigmore Hall in London, Lincoln Center in New York, the BBC Proms in London, the Salzburg Festival, and the Verbier Festival, under the baton of conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Iván Fischer, Semyon Bychkov, Marin Alsop, Herbert Blomstedt, Reinhard Goebel, and Juanjo Mena.
His CD recording of Ysaÿe's complete solo sonatas was awarded five stars in the trade journals “The Strad” and “BBC Music Magazine” and, according to “The Guardian” newspaper, deserves “special attention” among all recordings of this famous violin cycle.
Giovanni Guzzo began his musical training at the age of five on the piano, adding the violin at the age of six. At the age of 12, Guzzo was the youngest winner of the “Juan Bautista Plaza” National Violin Competition in Venezuela. Supported by French virtuoso Maurice Hasson, the young violinist received a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he graduated with the highest honors. Giovanni Guzzo has held a professorship in concert violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz since 2022.
Giovanni Guzzo plays a violin made by Gennaro Gagliano in 1759. He has also played the world-famous “Viotti ex-Bruce” Stradivarius in a concert for the British royal family.
Camerata Salzburg
At home in Salzburg and around the world for over 70 years: With its own concert series and as the resident ensemble of the Salzburg Festival and Mozart Week, CAMERATA has a significant influence on the city of music. As Salzburg's cultural ambassador, it is also a regular guest at major international concert venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the Shanghai Concert Hall.
As one of the world's oldest and most traditional chamber orchestras, CAMERATA combines the past and the future, while always remaining innovative and inspiring. With musicians from more than 20 countries, the orchestra's distinctive sound is particularly associated with Viennese classical music, namely the music of its hometown's famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
In 1952, the Viennese conductor and musicologist Bernhard Paumgartner, who was working in Salzburg, founded the Camerata Academica as an ensemble of teachers and students of the Mozarteum—with the vision of creating an ideal sound through the individual responsibility of each musician in the highest sense of community.
From the outset, the CAMERATA, under Paumgartner, a renowned Mozart specialist, was primarily committed to the works of the Salzburg composer. Both notable tours and recordings, such as the complete recordings of Mozart's piano concertos with Géza Anda as soloist in the 1960s and with Sir András Schiff in the 1980s, established the orchestra on the international music market.
Sándor Végh had the greatest influence on the development of the CAMERATA as its principal conductor from 1978 to 1997. With him at the podium, Mozart's opera repertoire and works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert also gained increasing importance. His credo of approaching each piece as if it were a chamber music performance by a string quartet—entirely in line with Paumgartner's idea—continues to shape the sound and playing style of the CAMERATA to this day. Invitations to the Salzburg Festival as an orchestra allowed the ensemble to grow further. Sándor Végh was succeeded by Sir Roger Norrington, Leonidas Kavakos, and Louis Langrée.
