No one could be left unmoved after listening to a performance of the Belgian/Flemish clarinettist Eddy Vanoosthuyse.
Internationally praised by the press, this musician has gained worldwide recognition for his musical interpretation and the remarkable technical and musical qualities that are displayed therein.Vanoosthuyse is performing throughout Eastern and Western Europe (almost all European countries), Latin and Central America, the USA, Canada as well as in China and Japan. He makes numerous recordings on radio, television (BRTN, RTBF, VRT, VARA, NOS, Radio Suisse Romande, Lietuvos Radio, Magyar Radio, Czech Radio, Danish Radio, Radio Chili en Exqi) and CD (Sony, Phaedra, Gobelin, Aliud, Talent).
He performs with important orchestras (I Pommerigi Musicali/Milano, Lithuanian Chamberorchestra, Sjanghai Symphony, Lisbon Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Symfonieorkest van Vlaanderen, B.R.T.N. Filharmonisch Orkest, Columbus Symphony, Collegium Instrumentale Brugense, Utah Philharmonia, Lubbock Symphony, Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, …) and composers (Levi, Oundjian, Sondeckis, Laethem Koenig, Octors, Bailey, Brossé, Terby, Vandenbroeck, …).
He's scheduled regularly on international festivals like the Festival of Flanders, the Festival of Wallonie, the Klara Festival, the Festival of Brussels, the Festival of Bourgogne, the Festival of modern music ‘Ars Musica’, the November Festival, the Vilnius Festival, and also in Paris, Washington, Chicago, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Madrid, Lissabon, Caracas, Santiago de Chile, Beijing, Osaka, Vancouver, ...
His preference to chamber music is emphasized by the by the many concerts with a variety of excellent quartets like the Vilnius Quartet, Simon Bolivar Quartet, Daniel Quartet, Chilli Quartet, Ciurlionis Quartet, … This way he has performed the quintet of Mozart over 50 times.
In 2009 Eddy Vanoosthuyse started his own chamber music ensemble, where the base is formed by the clarinet and a string quartet.
Added to that he, Vitaly Samoshko (first laureate Queen Elisabeth Competition for piano, 1999) and Michael Kugel (viola) formed a trio. Because of his passionate dedication to 'modern music' he's in contact with the most nominated composers of his time, to name a few: John Corigliano, Olivier Messiaen, Alfred Reed, Dirk Brossé, Scott McAllister, Jan Van der Roost, David Loeb, Wim Henderickx. A lot of these composers have dedicated work to him, or ask him to perform their new oeuvre.
He is the clarinet professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music Gent (University College, Gent) and a guest professor at numerous conservatories and universities (Indiana University/Bloomington, Simon Bolivar Conservatory/Caracas, DePaul University/Chicago, Lemmensinstituut/Leuven, University of the Nationalities/Beijing, University of the Arts/Osaka, San Marco University/Lima, Catholic University/Santiago, Arrizona State University/Phoenix, …).
He's been the principal clarinet of the Brussels Philharmonic/Flemish Radio orchestra since 1988. Before that, he was the soloist of the orchestra of the Opera of Flanders and soloist of the Flemish Opera respectively.
In 1992 he was invited for the World Philharmonic Orchestra (Georges Prêtre), in 1998 for the Symphonicum Europae (Millennium Concert of the Nations, Fisher Hall/Lincoln Centre New York).
His oeuvre is versatile: from Mozart to music of today and tomorrow.
In 2010 there will be a number of CD releases:
The Dutch ‘Gobelin Music Productions’ and the Belgian ‘Metropolis Productions’ asked him to start a new collection with masterpieces for clarinet. The ‘Eddy Vanoosthuyse Clarinet Collection’ was presented in July 2004 in Washington.
In 1999 he founded the clarinetchoir 'The International Clarinets', an ensemble that has been formed exclusively out of (former) students of Eddy Vanoosthuyse. The group made 3 CD recordings and worked with: Larry Combs/Chicago Symphony, Wenzel Fuchs/Berliner Philharmoniker, Eddie Daniels, Robert Spring, ...
Eddy Vanoosthuyse is a member of different national and international juries. In 2002, Vanoosthuyse receives from the city of Lima/Peru an ‘Honor al Mérito’ for the high standing quality of his career. In 2007, the ‘National Chinese Clarinet Association’ gives him an award for his renewing work with clarinetchoirs.
He is the artistic manager of the ‘International Music Promotion’ and the vice president of ‘SWUK’, a non profit organisation that supports young musicians in the beginning of their musical career.
From January 1, 2011 Eddy Vanoosthuyse will be the first ‘National Chair Coordinator’ for the International Clarinet Association. In this new function he will coordinate the international sections (members in 80 countries, sections in 40 different countries) of the world organization of the clarinet.
Vanoosthuyse exclusively plays the Buffet Crampon ‘TOSCA’ Clarinets and the Vandoren mouthpieces and reeds.
Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.
Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said "His music sounds like America." Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a llifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.
Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Mood Indigo", “Solitude", "In a Mellotone",and "Satin Doll". The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, "Mood Indigo"which brought him world wide fame.
When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people".
Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, whatmakes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.
Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home.''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.
Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in theBronx, in New York City. At his funeral attendedby over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day...A genius has passed."
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