B i o g r a p h y
Kristian Oma Rønnes (1991) started to play the bassoon at the age of 5 (“Fagottino”), and he got his first lessons from his father Robert Rønnes. Autumn 2007 he won the audition for being a participant on the Norwegian Academy of Music’s “Talent Program”, the very same year he also became the Academy’s first guest student as a bassoonist. From 2010-2014 Kristian studied his Bachelors at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Prof. Dag Jensen. From 2014-2017 he studied his Masters with Prof. Ole Kristian Dahl in Germany at “Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Mannheim”. During his masters he was also hospitating to “Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía” in Madrid to study with Prof. Klaus Thunemann. Kristian has also had lessons with bassoonists such as Sergio Azzolini, Stefano Canuti, Matthias Rácz, Roger Birnstingl, Martin Kuuskmann, Gustavo Núñez, Audun Halvorsen, several wind players from Berlin Philharmonic, the oboist Heinz Holliger, and more.
As a soloist Kristian's international debut was with Antonín Jiránek's (1712-1761) Bassoon Concerto no. 3 in F major in Steinfurth (Germany) at the age of 14 (April 9th 2006), with Rogaland Youth Symphony Orchestra from Norway. His most recent international soloistic appearance was with Egil Hovland's bassoon concerto "Agnus Dei" for bassoon & choir, which he performed in Mannheim (Germany) 2018. He has also gotten several compositions dedicated to him, which he has premiered. Among the composers are: Federico Maria Sardelli (Italian), Filip Sande (Norwegian), Pablo Queipo de Llano (Spanish), Kohei Kondo (Japanese), Quinn Mason (American), Giorgio Pacchioni (Italian), Robert Rønnes (Norwegian), Sevag Derghougassian (Lebanese), Marcus Paus (Norwegian), Dubravko Žerjal (Croatian), and more. All the composers and their pieces can be seen / heard at "Dedications".
As an orchestral bassoonist Kristian has played with several professional orchestras: Today he is the Principal Bassoonist in The Baltic Opera. Autumn 2016 he had contract as the Principal Bassoonist in South Denmark Philharmonic (Denmark), and right after a contract with Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He has also played with The Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra (Norway), The Norwegian Wind Ensemble, Staff Band of the Norwegian Armed Forces, Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester (Germany), Kammerphilharmonie Mannheim (Germany), Kurpfalz Philharmonie (Germany), NorrlandsOperan (Sweden), The Icelandic Opera, Deutsche Philharmonie Merck (Germany), and more.
Beside his bassoon studies Kristian is also productive as a composer, and his compositions, arrangements and restored works have been published by several publishers from different nations. Among his publishers are: ”National Library of Norway” (Norway), ”Music House Publishing A/S” (Norway), ”TrevCo Music Publishing” (USA), ”Emerson Edition Ltd” (England), "Trübcher Publishing" (England), ”Cantando Musikkforlag AS” (Norway) and "KOR Publications".
Kristian’s most reputed work so far is "The Expanded Bassoon Register"; in this book he has expanded the bassoon’s register and added his own made fingering chart for the new extremely high register. He has also worked closely with the bassoon manufacturer Bernd Moosmann for further developing the technique of the bassoon, which has resulted in an instrument with a lot of new possibilities which can be seen on the site "My Bassoons".
