Pierre-Antoine Tremblay

Born in Canada, Pierre-Antoine Tremblay specializes in the practice of historical instruments, from the early stages of the horn during the Baroque era to the final romantic flourishes of the early 20th century. He performs as first horn with prestigious period-instrument ensembles, including Europa Galante (Italy), Anima Eterna (Belgium), and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Canada). He receives regular invitations from ensembles such as the Freiburger Barockorchester (Germany), Collegium Vocale Gent (Belgium), Graindelavoix (Belgium), Concerto Copenhagen (Denmark), Arion Baroque Orchestra (Canada), Vespres d’Arnadi (Spain), and Concerto Köln (Germany). Over the past few years, he has performed in more than thirty countries across Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, collaborating with renowned conductors like Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe, Fabio Biondi, René Jacobs, Christophe Rousset, Sir Simon Rattle, Pablo Heras-Casado, Kent Nagano, Raphaël Pichon, and Ton Koopman.

As a soloist, Pierre-Antoine is equally adept at performing Baroque works with obbligato horn parts, such as Bach’s Mass in B Minor or the First Brandenburg Concerto, and traditional horn concertos by composers like Mozart and Richard Strauss. In 2014, he founded the Dialoghi Ensemble in Barcelona to explore classical and romantic repertoire on period instruments. Their debut recording, featuring Mozart and Beethoven quintets for fortepiano and winds, was released by Harmonia Mundi in 2018.

Passionate about teaching the early horns, he was appointed in 2023 at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), succeeding his mentor, Claude Maury, and at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona. He has conducted masterclasses at institutions such as the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Singapore, the J.F. Oberlin University of Tokyo, the Domaine Forget Academy in Canada, the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana, the Amsterdam Conservatory, the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and the Katarina Gurska School of Music of Madrid. He also taught at McGill University in Montreal and at the Jeune Orchestre de l’Abbaye, Université de Poitiers in France.

He began his musical education on the modern horn at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec with Julie-Anne Drolet and later at McGill University in Montreal. He then studied the natural horn under Teunis van der Zwart at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where he earned a master’s degree in early music in 2012.

An enthusiast of history and instruments, Pierre-Antoine owns a collection of early horns, including two 19th-century natural horns by Marcel-Auguste Raoux and Courtois Neveu Aîné, as well as a Vienna horn by Leopold Uhlmann. He collaborates with horn maker Richard Seraphinoff in researching and designing new historical horn models and is a long-time contributor to the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), making hundreds of works for horn accessible to all.