Espina-Ruiz named artistic director

FALLS VILLAGE >> Music Mountain recently announced that award-winning clarinetist Oskar Espina-Ruiz is the new artistic director, according to a press release. He will begin his new position for the 2017 summer season

Music Mountain President Nicholas Gordon praised Espina-Ruiz’ accomplishments. “Mr. Espina-Ruiz has enormous talent combined with the wide experience necessary for this multi-faceted job. He is a brilliant musician with wide experience, particularly in chamber music,” Gordon said, in a written statement. “He is an experienced administrator and he is a gifted teacher, able to continue to make Music Mountain’s teaching programs unique and in demand by talented students.”

Espina-Ruiz has been described by the press as a “masterful soloist” and a “highly expressive” clarinetist. During the last 10 years, Espina-Ruiz has performed at major concert halls and festivals to high critical acclaim, including concerto performances at the Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and recitals in New York City, Washington DC, Moscow, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

He has appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony (Russia), St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic (Russia), Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción (Paraguay) and Bilbao Symphony (Spain). His chamber music collaborations include the American, Shanghai, Cassatt, Escher and Daedalus quartets, the Quintet of the Americas, pianists Benjamin Hochman, Ursula Oppens and Anthony Newman, cellist David Geber (founder, American String Quartet) and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra artists.

Espina-Ruiz has recorded for the Bridge, Kobaltone and Prion labels, receiving high critical acclaim by fellow clarinetists Richard Stoltzman and Charles Neidich for his solo recording “Julián Menéndez Rediscovered.” He holds a DMA from Stony Brook University, where his major teachers were Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima. Mr. Espina-Ruiz is artistic director of the Treetops Chamber Music Society in Stamford, CT since 2006. Since 2011 he is Artist/Asst. Professor of Clarinet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC where he serves on the committee of the Chrysalis Chamber Music Institute, in partnership with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Music Mountain is supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission On Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Oskar Espina-Ruiz is the new artistic director at Music Mountain in Falls Village.