Biography Beniamino Paganini
Beniamino Paganini (b.1994) is a passionate traverso player, harpsichordist, maestro al cembalo, music teacher and musicologist. He also performs on claviorganum, organ and recorder. He was named “Young Musician of the Year 2020” by the Belgian Music Press and selected as one of “twenty musicians in their twenties” in 2021 by Radio Klara. He has won several first prizes and also received the ‘Sonderpreis der Jury’ at the International Telemann Competition in 2021.
Beniamino is founder and, together with Nele Vertommen, general and artistic director of the baroque ensemble Musica Gloria. With this ensemble, Beniamino performs some 30 concerts a year for organisations such as AMUZ (BE), Bachfest Leipzig (DE), BOZAR (BE), Concertgebouw Brugge (BE), De Bijloke (BE), Klara (BE), Les Festivals de Wallonie (BE), MA Festival (BE), Musica Antica (NL) and Trigonale Festival (AT). He has produced numerous video recordings and five CDs with Musica Gloria, including ‘The Bachs & The Flute’ and ‘Corelli & Handel: Encounters in Rome’. He also collaborates in concerts and recordings with many other ensembles such as Il Gardellino (Jan De Winne and Marcel Ponseele), Scherzi Musicali (Nicolas Achten), B’Rock and La Petite Bande (Sigiswald Kuijken). He is a harpsichord accompanist at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles and the Kunstbrug in Gentbrugge and teaches traverso and historical performance practice at the academies of Bruges and Gentbrugge.
Beniamino discovered his passion for early music at the age of 7 and has continued to cultivate it ever since. At 16 he started his bachelor studies at both of the Royal Conservatories of Brussels, and later at the conservatories of Leuven and The Hague. He received his master’s degrees in Traverso (2016), Harpsichord (2017), Maestro al Cembalo (2019) and a bachelor’s degree in Musicology (2018), all with great distinction. He studied traverso with Barthold Kuijken, Frank Theuns and Jan De Winne, renaissance flute with Kate Clark and Patrick Beuckels, harpsichord with Frédérick Haas, Fabio Bonizzoni, Kris Verhelst and Maestro al Cembalo with Patrick Ayrton. At the KU Leuven, he studied Musicology and obtained an Educational Master’s degree in Cultural Studies.
