Quick Facts
Biography
Christopher Palameta is an oboist specializing in historically informed performance. He is based in Paris.
Christopher Palameta was born in 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, and studied Early Music Performance at McGill University. His main teachers were Theodore Baskin, Washington McClain, Bruce Haynes, and Marcel Ponseele.
After being appointed oboist in the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (based in Toronto, Canada), of which he was a core member from 2003-2007, he relocated to France to pursue work with many of Europe's finest period ensembles including Die Kölner Akademie (with which, as principal oboe, he has recorded numerous CDs for the CPO and BIS labels). He currently devotes himself to chamber music primarily. To this end, he created Notturna in 2006, the Montreal-based ensemble that explores early music written especially for wind instruments.
Palameta has participated in over 30 commercial recordings for the ATMA Classique, BIS, CPO, Analekta, Sony BMG, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and Naxos labels.
In France, he has collaborated with Les Musiciens du Louvre, Le Concert Spirituel, La Simphonie du Marais, Le Palais Royal, Le Concert Lorrain, Ensemble Les Surprises, and with Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, while in North America, he has performed with Tafelmusik and Aradia in Toronto, Opera Lafayette in Washington D. C., Apollo’s Fire in Cleveland, and Arion, Les Idées heureuses, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Les Boréades, and Caprice in Montreal. With these ensembles, he has participated in some fifty festivals worldwide including those in the Americas, Asia, and Europe (Ambronay, Pontoise, Aranjuez, Barcelona, Lufthansa London, Irsee Klang und Raum, Ravinia, Aspen, Lamèque, etc.)
In 2003 and 2006, he was awarded research grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and in 2002, Palameta took second prize at the International American Bach Soloists Competition in Berkeley, California.
His musical and musicological undertaking to rediscover and disseminate the works of Johann Gottlieb Janitsch began in 2007. In addition to three solo recordings of Janitsch's music for ATMA Classique, Christopher Palameta is preparing an edition of Janitsch’s chamber works with the Scottish publishing house Prima la musica!, and has played and presented recitals of Janitsch's works with Notturna in North America and Europe.
His solo recordings have been met with widespread critical acclaim. In 2009, 'Janitsch: Sonate de camera, Volume I' was nominated for a Prix Opus in the category 'Best CD of the Year' by the Conseil québécois de la musique., while his recording of suites for oboe by Marin Marais was nominated in 2014 for a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Award).