Sandro Compagnon (France, 1996)
Born in Nice Sandro Compagnon started playing the saxophone at the age of 6 when he moved to Chamonix Mont-Blanc with his father as his first teacher. Two years later, he began his studies at the CRR of Annecy in the class of Christian Charnay and Fabrizio Mancuso. In 2006 he won the third prize at the European competition in Gap in the under 16 category and in 2010 the third prize at the European competition in Valenciennes in the soloist category. After obtaining a DEM in saxophone and chamber music in 2011, he joined Jean-Denis Michat’s class at the CRR of Lyon in 2013. In parallel to his classical music studies, Sandro plays a lot of jazz and performs in numerous festivals such as the Jazz Festival of Vannes (invited by the Spok Frevo Orchestra) or the Cosmo Jazz
Festival of Chamonix of André Manoukian. He regularly performs in concert with André Manoukian and has recently recorded for one of his albums. Since the beginning of his young career, Sandro Compagnon has had the opportunity to perform in prestigious concert halls and festivals in France and abroad (Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, Radio-France Festival in Montpellier, Salle Cortot, Izumi Hall in Osaka, Topan Hall in Tokyo, Folles Journées de Nantes, Maison de la Radio, as a soloist with the Garde Républicaine orchestra…). He plays regularly with the pianist Gaspard Dehaene. Together, they have performed at the prestigious Printemps des Arts festival in Monte-Carlo. Also, Compagnon has been working closely for several years with the composer Bruno Mantovani. He has premiered the soprano saxophone version of his piece for solo flute “Früh” at La Scala Paris live on France Musique, has transcribed numerous woodwinds works for saxophone and has recently recorded his first solo CD, dedicated to the composer’s music. He is a Master’s graduate in saxophone and chamber music at the CNSMDP in the classes of Claude Delangle and Michel Moraguès and, he follows the class of generative improvisation with Vincent LêQuang and Alexandros Markeas. In 2017, he won the 1st prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition with the Zahir Quartet of which he was a member between 2016 and 2021, in November 2019, the 3rd prize at the Adolphe Sax International Competition in Dinant, Belgium and in October 2021, the 1st prize at the Thomas Kuti International Competition in Thessaloniki, Greece. Sandro is also, since May 2021, a laureate of the Banque Populaire Foundation. He has just been admitted as a Master Soloist at the ZHdK in Zürich (Switzerland) in the class of Lars Mlekusch.