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Biography

American conductor Anthony Parnther is beginning his fifth season as Music Director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. As conductor of the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, whose members hail from leading orchestras nationwide, it was Parnther who led its sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, showcasing the world premiere of I Can by five-time Grammy-winner Jon Batiste. 

A master of multiple genres, Parnther has conducted many of the world’s preeminent artists, from Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Jessye Norman, and Frederica von Stade to Imagine Dragons, Wu-Tang Clan, John Legend, Metro Boomin, Avenged Sevenfold, and Rihanna. The L.A. Times hailed Anthony as “The quintessential L.A. musician of our day.” Parnther’s recent conducting engagements include the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, Music Academy of the West, Rochester Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony in Australia, and the Chineke! Orchestra, with whom he debuted at the BBC Proms.

Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Parnther has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. As well as leading LA Opera’s world premiere of Tamar-kali Brown’s oratorio We Hold These Truths and Long Beach Opera’s revival of Anthony Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Central Park Five, Parnther has premiered and recorded works by Batiste, Kris Bowers, Chanda Dancy, Davis, Adolphus Hailstork, Marian Harrison, Philip Herbert, Daniel Kidane, Gary Powell Nash, James Newton, Perry, Price, Taylor, George Walker, Errollyn Wallen, James Wilson, and John Wineglass. For his extensive championing of works by Black, Latino, and women composers, Parnther was profiled as a “Local Hero” by Los Angeles’s KCET/TV.

As one of today’s foremost film conductors, Parnther helms recording sessions for many of the world’s top international feature films and television series, working in close collaboration with some of the most decorated media composers in the industry. On the scoring stages of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Budapest, Glasgow, and London, he has led the scoring sessions for projects like Avatar: The Way of Water, Oppenheimer, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Encanto, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Nope, Creed III, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Diaries of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild, Tenet, American Dad, Turning Red, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, and League of Legends.

Representation: Emily Yoon | Wasserman Music
emily.yoon@teamwass.com

PR: Jessica Lustig | 21C Media Group
jlustig@21cmediagroup.com

Hailed by the Huffington Post as “the ultimate in tonal purity” and praised by the L.A. Times for his “effortless phrasing,” Anthony Parnther is a Los Angeles-based recording artist for motion picture, television, and video game scores. In addition to the bassoon and contrabassoon, Anthony performs on period instruments from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras as well as specializing in some not-so-common woodwind instruments like the sarrusophone and the heckelphone. It is not uncommon to see Anthony wielding a bass or baritone saxophone, a contrabass clarinet, or any array of gigantic woodwind instruments in addition to his bassoons on the scoring stages in Hollywood.

Anthony is an active bassoonist and contrabassoonist and has recorded an extensive list of film and television soundtracks by Hollywood’s preeminent composers, including John Williams, Terence Blanchard, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Bruce Broughton, Michael Giacchino, Mychael Danna, Ludwig Goransson, David Newman, John Powell, Alan Silvestri, and Hans Zimmer.

Recent projects he has performed on include Star Wars: Episode IX -The Rise of Skywalker, The Simpsons, Animaniacs, Looney Tunes, Family Guy, Lion King, Coming 2 America, Mulan, Empire, The Kominsky Method, Only Murders in the Building, Moana, Suicide Squad, Star Trek Beyond, and countless more.

Anthony has performed with the Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Symphony, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, MUSE/ique, Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, California Chamber Orchestra, Musica Angelica, Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, Jacaranda: Music on the Edge, Here/Now Music Festival, Long Beach Opera, Golden State Pops Orchestra, the Echo Society, and the McCallum Concert Band.

Anthony’s extensive discography includes recordings and live performances with artists spanning virtually every genre, including Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, Rihanna, Jackie Evancho, Kanye West, Hanson, Snoop Dogg, Eels, Madonna, Kid Cudi, Il Volo, Elton John, Michael Bolton, Pete Townshend, Billy Idol, Evanescence, Vanessa Williams, Maynard Ferguson, Wynton Marsalis, Doc Severinsen, and Stevie Wonder.

He has appeared on the American Music Awards, the BET Awards, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Video Games Live, and the Video Game Awards.

He began bassoon lessons with Julia Miller in Lynchburg, Virginia, and went on to train professionally with Robert Barris, Burl Lane, Willard Elliot, and Tristan Willems.

Anthony is a W. Schreiber performing artist and has performed on his W. Schreiber S-91 Prestige bassoon since 1997.

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Photos by Dario Acosta