Fabio Zanon

Fabio Zanon’s activity as a teacher, chamber musician, conductor, author and broadcaster has significantly contributed to increasing the perception of the guitar in the wider musical scene.

As a soloist, he has performed in more than 50 countries, at venues including Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, Philharmonie in Berlin, Carnegie Hall in New York, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Philharmonie in St Petersburg, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Sala São Paulo, Bozar in Brussels, and KKL in Lucerne.

He has played over 40 concertos for guitar and orchestra, with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, São Paulo Symphony, RTÉ Symphony in Dublin, and Russian State Orchestra in Moscow. A recording of Francis Hime's Guitar Concerto has been nominated for a Latin Grammy award.

He has also been recognized as a conductor and regularly performs as a soloist/conductor. As a broadcaster he has conceived and presented over 200 programmes for Radio Cultura in São Paulo, and a classical music podcast.

Fabio received his early musical education in his native Brazil, where his main teachers were his father and professors Antonio Guedes and Henrique Pinto; he holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of São Paulo. In 1990 he moved to London where, after studying at the Academy with Michael Lewin and attending master classes with Julian Bream and John Williams among others, he gained a Master of Music degree from the University of London.

His career was propelled forward in 1996 by winning the first prize at both the Guitar Foundation of America Competition in the USA and the Francisco Tarrega Competition in Spain, in addition to top prizes in Alessandria, Toronto and Havana.

In 2009 Fabio was appointed a Visiting Professor at the Academy; he has also been a regular teacher at the Master Guitarra Alicante in Spain since 2014. In 2008 he was an artist-in-residence at the Royal Stockholm Conservatoire in Sweden and he has been a teacher-in-residence at the Lisbon-Estoril International Festival since 2011. He has given masterclasses at most leading conservatoires in Europe, Asia and the Americas. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy.

Among his most prestigious engagements has been a concert for Her Majesty the Empress Michiko of Japan, and since 2013 he has been Artistic Director of the Campos do Jordão International Festival in Brazil, the largest classical music festival in South America.

He has recorded for labels such as Decca, Naxos and BIS and is now a Guitar Coop artist.