Michael Sweeney

Bassoon

Michael Sweeney was named Principal Bassoonist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1989 after having played two seasons in the same position with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Kenneth Klein basson fagotto
Apart from orchestral playing, Michael is a busy soloist with a great interest in early and post-modern music. He has performed the concertos and concertante works of Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Strauss, Weber, Canadian composers Marjan Mozetich, Rodney Sharman and Rudolf Komorous, and American composer Michael Welsh. postmodern
As a chamber musician, Michael frequently appeared on the TSO Evening Overture series, most memorably with Emmanuel Ax in the piano quintets of Mozart and Beethoven, and was a founding member of the quartet of bassoonists, Caliban. He also performed Glenn Gould’s Bassoon Sonata with pianist Patricia Parr at the international conference marking both the 60th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and the opening of the concert hall that bears his name at CBC Centre/Toronto.
Michael’s musicological activities have included preparing a performing edition for the TSO of instrumental excerpts from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s last opera, and he is currently working on the commentary to his new edition of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto.
Prior to joining the TSO, Michael received the Master of Music degree from State University of New York, Stony Brook. He studied the bassoon with Norman Herzberg at the University of Southern California, Kay Brightman at California State University, Fullerton, and with Arthur Weisberg at both Stony Brook and the Yale School of Music where he also studied musicianship with Joan Panetti.
Michael makes his home in Toronto with Peter Eliot Weiss, who is a playwright.

Michael Sweeney will be performing at Via Salzburg’s
‘Gathering’ concert.