Interview
When and where was your first concert with the MCO?
My first concert with the MCO was in 2004, on a tour to Venezuela and Cuba, with Claudio Abbado and Gustavo Dudamel. I remember it being one of the best experiences of my life.
What’s the best thing about playing with the MCO?
It's always amazing to play with the MCO. This is a chamber orchestra that means sharing and making music together with a lot of emotions. You always enjoy being with your colleagues.
What is your most memorable moment with the orchestra?
I can't say which concert was the best or the most memorable, but if I had to choose one, maybe I would choose the first concert (on the 2004 tour to Venezuela and Cuba) and also my first concert at the Lucerne Festival, in 2005 with Daniel Harding.
Can you tell us something about your instrument?
I started to play the clarinet when I was 8 years old, so I think now it has become a part of my body. I really enjoy it and especially playing it in an orchestra because I think it represents the colour of the woodwinds, and we can blend the sound very easily with other instruments.
What is the most difficult aspect of your job?
For me, the most difficult aspect is preparing the music: you have to know everything about the programme very well. Also, when you go in tour, you have to be ready and fresh every time to do and to give all your best.
Biography
Vicente Alberola is the Artistic Director of Music Masters Course Valencia (MMCV), principal clarinetist of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and solo clarinetist of Les Dissonances and the Utopia Orchestra.
Vicente Alberola studied with Walter Boeykens at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, Belgium. At the same time, he took lessons with George Pieterson (of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) and Larry Combs (of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). For more than twenty years, Vicente Alberola was Principal Clarinetist of the opera orchestras in Madrid and Galicia. During the last decade, he has been a guest principal clarinetist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the MMCK Tokyo Orchestra. He has played under the baton of Claudio Abbado, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert, Nicola Luisotti, among others.
In 2003, he was appointed conductor of the Madrid Opera Youth Orchestra, and in 2007, conductor of the Soria Youth Orchestra. He was the chief conductor of the Orquesta 430 of Vigo. He has conducted the Oviedo Filarmonía, the Orquesta de Castilla y León, the Madrid Symphony, the Real Filarmonía Santiago, the Orquesta del Valles, the Valencia Symphony, the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, the Youth Orchestra of the Canary Islands, and the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Galicia. Vicente Alberola has also conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Beijing Festival and the Musikfest Hamburg. Recently, he has been invited by the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia and the MMCJ Tokyo.
In the
field of chamber music, he is a regular guest at the Beethoven Festival Bonn,
the Alélla Festival, and the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Paris.
