Patrick Messina

France's Patrick Messina is one of the world's top orchestral clarinetists, with a distinguished career in both Europe and the U.S., where he was partially trained. A protégé of violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who has called him "the Magic Clarinetist," he is also a noted educator in France and beyond. Of Spanish and Sicilian background, Messina was born in Nice, France. He studied the clarinet at first with his father, and then in France with Guy Deplus and Michel Arrignon, taking top prizes in both clarinet and chamber music at the Conservatoire de Paris. He moved to the U.S. for studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Franklin Cohen and at the Mannes College of Music in New York with Ricardo Morales. Messina scored a breakthrough in 1992 when he was named a laureate of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation. He won two more major prizes in the U.S., at the East and West International Auditions in New York and the Ima Hogg National Competition in Houston, and in 1996 he won a place in the clarinet section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. He remained there until 2003 and then returned to France to become principal clarinet of the Orchestre National de France, under conductor Kurt Masur. He has also held guest principal positions with the Chicago Symphony and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. His concerto soloist credits include performances with the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Cannes, the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, and the Kioi Sinfonietta of Tokyo. Messina has performed in chamber groups with Daniel Hope, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Simone Dinnerstein, Gautier Capuçon, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and most of France's top string quartets. He has taught at London's Royal Academy of Music, and as of the late 2010s was on the faculty at the Ecole Normale Cortot in Paris. Messina's performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, was recorded and released by Radio France, and he has recorded the clarinet concertos of Bechara El-Khoury for Naxos. In 2018 his recordings of clarinet chamber works by Jaan Rääts, Henryk Górecki, and Arvo Pärt appeared on the Aparte label.
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