News from Illinois Wesleyan
|
||||
|
||||
April 9, 2002
Contact: Sherry Wallace, 309/556-3181
BLOOMINGTON, Ill.On Saturday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. in Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Evelyn Chapel, 1301 N. Park St., Bloomington, Harry Sparnaay and Silvia Sparnaay Castillo will perform.
Based In Amsterdam, Sparnaay is said by music critics, to be an "amazing bass clarinet virtuoso, who has expanded the possibilities of his instrument in the same sort of way that Paganini did for the violin and Jimi Hendrix for the electric guitar." Sparnaay is currently a professor of bass clarinet and contemporary music at the Conservatories of Amsterdam and Utrecht. His wife, Silvia, is an accomplished organist. Their program consists of contemporary compositions written for them by composers from around the world.
About Harry Sparnaay
Sparnaay, who has given concerts and made radio recordings all over Europe, North and South American, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Asia performing over 500 musical works written for and dedicated to him by composers such as Claudio Ambrosini, Luciano Berio, Gerard Brophy, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis. He has played solo at numerous music festivals including Warsaw, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris and Athens. Other festivals at which Sparnaay has performed include Witten, Aarhus, Middelburg, and Salzburg.
Sparnaay performed the world premiere of In Freundschaft (bass clarinet version) and Solo (bass-and contrabass clarinet version-adaptation by Barry Anderson) by Karlheinz Stockhausen and was one of the soloists in Die Verwandlung by Paul Heinz Dittrich and in the operas Naima by Theo Loevendie, Prometeo by Luigi Nono and A King, Riding by Klaas de Vries. He has played as soloist with the HET TRIO, which he along with flautist Harrie Starreveld and pianist Rene Eckhardt formed in 1984, or in other combinations, on more than 40 CDs. His CD with the HET TRIO with music by Ton de Leeuw,, received an Edison award.
About Silvia Sparnaay Castillo
As a soloist, Castillo has performed concerts with the LRA Radio Nacional Orchestra under the direction of Ljerko Spiller and the Symphony Orchestra of Rosario under the direction of Juan Carlos Zorzi. She also has studied viola with Tomas Tichauer and harpsichord with Monica Kosachov.
Castillo, who has given concerts in Holland, Austria, Mexico, Poland, Ireland, Slowakia and Argentina, has received three scholarships from the University of San Juan and in 1986 she received an honorable mention during the first National Organ competition. |
||||