Ricardo Odriozola - Svev: Chamber Works by Knut Vaage (2020)

Ricardo Odriozola was born in Bilbao, Spain, in 1965. He studied violin in Bilbao and Madrid with Demetrio Amigo and Francisco Comesaña. After a year in Boston, where he was the concertmaster of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra for the 1982-83 season (while studying with Roman Totenberg), he pursued a bachelor degree from the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied violin with Zvi Zeitlin and chamber music with members of the Cleveland Quartet. After graduating he relocated to Bergen, Norway, where he has been living and working since 1987.

In 1993, after two years of study in Copenhagen with Milan VItek, he gave a highly praised debut recital in the Danish capital.

He was the first violinist of the Hansa Quartet from 1989 to 2000 anda member of the BIT-20 ensemble for contemporary music between 1994 and 1997.

Through the years Odriozola has built an extensive repertoire that combines the classics with a deep interest for contemporary music. He has given concert series of Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas and piano trios as well as of J.S. Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin. He has had, and continues to have, a close association to many living composers. His close connection to the late Harald Sæverud resulted in many performances of his music as well as in the first recording of Sæverud’s string quartets, with the Hansa Quartet in 1996. In 1997 he undertook, with Einar Røttingen and Trond Sæverud, an extensive tour of the United States to mark the centenary of Sæverud’s birth. The tour was financed by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

Many composers have written works specially for him, beginning with the two Massachusetts residents Leslie Hurwitz and Pasquale Tassone. The Danish Mogens Christensen dedicated two violin concertos to him, which he premiered with the Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra in 1994 and 1998. His close association with the Norwegian Edvard Hagerup Bull has produced a CD of previously unrecorded chamber works titled “Reflections”. Together with Einar Røttingen, Odriozola gave the premiere performance of Hagerup Bull’s second Duo (from 1973) at the Bergen International Festival in 2000. After the performance the composer decided to dedicate the work to the two musicians.

Odriozola has edited numerous works by Hagerup Bull, Ketil Hvoslef and the late Kenneth Sivertsen and is presently getting these editions ready for publication.

On August 13th 2006 Odriozola performed K.A. Hartmann’s Concerto Funebre with the Deutsches Kammerorkester Berlin (conducted by Jon Bara Johansen) at an open air concert at Checkpoint Charlie as part of the ceremony to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the raising of the Berlin Wall.

SInce 1987 Odriozola has been teaching violin and chamber music at the Bergen Grieg Academy, where he also conducts the sinfonietta (ensemble for contemporary music).

Odriozola owns the small independent record company Amethyst Records – www.amethyst-records.com – and appears on nearly 40 CDs as soloist, chamber musician or conductor.

Since 2009 he is a member of the acclaimed Valen Trio.

Odriozola is also active as a composer, with some 40 works to his credit for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and orchestra as well as a number of songs.