Giovanni Antonini

The conductor Giovanni Antonini was born in Milan and is renowned for his refined and innovative interpretations of Classical and Baroque repertory. He is a founding member of the Baroque ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, which he has directed since 1989. He has performed with this ensemble as a conductor and as a soloist on recorder and Baroque transverse flute in Europe, the USA, Canada, South America, Australia, Japan and Malaysia. He also works regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2025/26 season he conducted Le nozze di Figaro at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and Gaetano Pugnani’s Werther with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, gave concerts with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and returned to work with the Bamberg Symphony and the Czech Philharmonic. In addition, Il Giardino Armonico gave numerous concerts as ensemble in residence at the Wigmore Hall in London.

Important opera conducting engagements have included Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Bellini’s Norma at the Salzburg Festival, Handel’s Orlando and Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo at the MusikTheater an der Wien, Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Zurich Opera House and Giulio Cesare, Così fan tutte and Cesti’s L’Orontea at La Scala, Milan.

Giovanni Antonini has worked with artists such as Cecilia Bartoli, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Giuliano Carmignola, Isabelle Faust, Sol Gabetta, Sumi Jo, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Viktoria Mullova and Giovanni Sollima.

His discography includes Vivaldi’s Ottone in Villa (Naïve), two albums with Julia Lezhneva (Decca), Beethoven’s complete symphonies with the Basel Chamber Orchestra (Sony Classical) and the album Revolution with Emmanuel Pahud (Warner Classics). As artistic director of the project Haydn2032, his goal is to perform and record all of Haydn’s 107 symphonies with Il Giardino Armonico and the Basel Chamber Orchestra by the time of the composer’s 300th birthday. The first 17 albums have already been released by Alpha Classics.

Giovanni Antonini studied at the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan and at the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva.