About
The Venice Baroque Orchestra is a baroque orchestra founded in 1997 by the Italian conductor and harpsichordist Andrea Marcon, based in Venice, Italy.
The VBO's concerts have been filmed by the BBC and NHK, and it is also winning widespread acclaim for its opera performances. Andrea Marcon's dedication to the rediscovery of Baroque masterpieces has led to the first fully staged performances in modern times of Francesco Cavalli's opera in 1998 and Händel's Siroe in 2000. In December 2001, he conducted the contemporary revival of Cimarosa's L'Olimpiade in Venice's Teatro Malibran.
During the 2002-2003 season the VBO under Andrea Marcon performed in cities including Rotterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Lisbon, Vienna, Barcelona, Venice, and Tokyo. Engagements for the 2003-2004 season include concert performances of Händel's Siroe in Paris, Hamburg, and Metz; tours of the USA including Los Angeles (the new Walt Disney Concert Hall), semi-staged performances of Siroe in Berkeley, and fully-staged performances of Händel's opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Andrea Marcon will also be conducting Händel's at the Frankfurt Opera.
The VBO made its Sony Classical debut in 2000 with a critically acclaimed disc that featured Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and the recording premieres of three other Vivaldi concertos with Carmignola as soloist. In August 2001 their second second recording for Sony Classical was released, featuring the recording premieres of six late Vivaldi concertos, with Carmignola as soloist. Recordings by Andrea Marcon and the VBO have received extraordinary praise and many have won special distinction, including the Diapason d'or, the Vivaldi Award of the Cini Foundation, and Germany's Echo Award (for The Four Seasons). In 2004 Andrea Marcon & the VBO signed an ecxlusive contract with Archiv Produktion/Deutsche Grammophone.