Jean-Pierre Dassonville

horn

Né à Soignies en Belgique, Jean-Pierre Dassonville entame ses études musicales, guidé par les conseils avisés de son père, et les termine aux conservatoires royaux de Mons et de Liège dans la classe de Nico De Marchi. Il se perfectionne ensuite auprès de Francis Orval et de Claude Maury.

He was soon engaged in various orchestras, successively with the Belgian military band, the national radio (RTBF) orchestra, the Flemish Opera and currently as first horn in the Royal Monnaie Opera orchestra in Brussels.

He is also intensely involved with the valveless baroque natural horn, on which he is now a frequently-heard performer. He has played first horn with Les Agrémens, ex Tempore, Il Gardellino, les Muffati, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, BachPlus, The New Baroque Times, l’Orchestre des Champs Elysées and the Collegium Vocale under Philippe Herreweghe and the Anima Eterna Orchestra.

Comme chambriste, tant au cor moderne que naturel, on le retrouve dans les festivals internationaux de musique de chambre de Stavelot et « Resonances » au château d’Halloy , dans les ensembles de la Monnaie, entre autres avec Antonio Pappano, les ensembles Oxalys, Kheops,Quartz,Odéon, Soltice, Mengal, Il Gardellino, l’ensemble Wolf, le Concert Bourgeois, le Quatuor Danel, en duo avec le pianofortiste Guy Van Waas , le quintette à vents des Agrémens et le pianiste Jos Van Immerseel.

Many sound and video recordings have resulted from these collaborations.

His solo activities have seen him perform with the Monnaie Orchestra under Kazushi Ono, Alain Altinoglu, the Ensemble Orchestral of Brussels, the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon Provence, the orchestra Bruocsella, Brussels Philharmonic, Belgian Brass. At the Vire horn festival he premièred the concerto of Roland Schoelinck, who dedicated it to him. He is a regular guest at that festival as well as those of Avignon, Montréal and Annecy, at Liverpool for the British Horn Society, at the symposiums of the International Horn Society at London in 2014 and in Ghent in 2019. He gives master classes notably at the Epsilon festival at Saint-Yrieix La Perche, in Anjou with ARAM, at the Avignon Vire festival, the festivals of Dijon, Lille and Strasbourg, at the Montréal Conservatory, the early-music seminary of Namur, the International Academy of Dinant, the summer academy of Saint Vaast, plus various congresses of the French Horn Association, at Birmingham and the Royal Northern College of Music at Manchester for the British Horn Society, and at IHS symposiums where he teaches both modern and natural horn. He is also invited as coach by the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique at Saintes (France).

L’International Horn Society l’a aussi reconnu comme un des grands représentants du style « européen » du cor. Dans ce cadre, il a joué en Août 2014 à Londres (IHS 46) et en Juillet 2019 à Gand (IHS51), lors des symposiums annuels, plusieurs prestations dont des récitals avec un Cor d’Adolphe Sax à 6 pistons.

In August 2020 he was invited as a Featured Artist to the 52nd Annual International Horn Symposium in the United States. He was invited in Montreal in July 2023 for the 55th IHS Symposium.

This season he will play solo horn in B. Britten’s Serenade with the Monnaie orchestra under Alain Altinoglu in Brussels and Colmar.

Since 2006, he has taught at Belgian conservatories and now teaches horn and natural horn at the Brussels Royal Conservatory.

He is also laureate of an international Alpenhorn contest — another of his interests — in Nendaz, Switzerland.

All these activities have taken Jean-Pierre Dassonville to various parts of Europe, as well as to Japan, Canada, China, Korea, Singapore and the United States.