Alexis Kossenko

Flutist Alexis Kossenko established the period-instrument ensemble Les Ambassadeurs and has appeared regularly with numerous Baroque groups. His instrumental command extends across a variety of historical flutes as well as the recorder, and he maintains an active parallel career as a conductor.

Born in Nice, France, in 1977, Kossenko trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, where Alain Marion instructed him in modern flute and he received a first prize. He continued at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under historical-flute specialist Marten Root.

Although he earned several distinctions on modern flute, among them first prize at the 1995 Lions Club International Flute Competition and a special prize at the 2000 Jean-Pierre Rampal Flute Competition, his principal activity has centered on Baroque repertoire, leading to frequent engagements with chamber orchestras in France and abroad. Those ensembles have included Le Concert d'Astrée, Le Concert Spirituel, and John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.

As a conductor he has led B'Rock, Arte dei Suonatori, and the Holland Baroque Society. Chamber-music collaborations have involved keyboardist Richard Egarr, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, and violinist Andrew Manze, among others. Kossenko founded Les Ambassadeurs and has toured and recorded extensively with that group as well as with Arte dei Suonatori.

More than a dozen recordings document his work, many issued on the Alpha label and others on Glossa and Channel Classics. With Les Ambassadeurs he released the album Vivaldi: Concerti per l'Orchestra di Dresda on Alpha in 2013. In 2021 he moved to Claves for a recording of the Symphonies Concertantes of Antoine Reicha with Gli Angeli Genève.