Sandro Compagnon

Born in Nice in 1996, 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, then Fabrizio Mancuso.

After obtaining a DEM in saxophone and chamber music in 2011, he joined Jean-Denis Michat's class at the CRR in Lyon in 2013. In parallel to his classical music studies, Sandro practices a lot of jazz and performs in numerous festivals such as the Vannes Jazz Festival (invited by the Spok Frevo Orchestra) or at André Manoukian's Cosmo Jazz Festival in Chamonix. He regularly performs in concert with André Manoukian and 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 pianist Gaspard Dehaene. Together, they have performed at the prestigious Printemps des Arts festival in Monte-Carlo. Sandro Compagnon has also been working closely with composer Bruno Mantovani for several years. He premiered the soprano saxophone version of his piece for solo flute Früh at La Scala Paris live on France Musique, transcribed numerous woodwind works for saxophone and recently recorded his first solo compact disc dedicated to the music of the composer.

He has a Master's degree in saxophone and chamber music at the CNSMDP in the classes of Claude Delangle and Michel Moraguès and, he follows the curriculum of generative improvisation with Vincent Lê Quang 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 to the Master Soloist program at the ZHdK in Zürich (Switzerland) in the class of Lars Mlekusch.

Photo credit: Alice Blangero