Oskar Espina Ruiz

Oskar 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. His chamber music collaborations include the American, Argus, Ariel, Cassatt, Daedalus, Escher, Shanghai and Verona quartets. Current projects include the release of a new album for clarinet and piano with pianist Victoria Schwartzman and the premier of a concerto by Alfonso Fuentes. He is associate professor of clarinet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and serves as artistic director at the American Music Festival (from January 2022), Chamber Music Wilmington (from May 2020), Treetops Chamber Music Society (Stamford, CT) and Music Mountain Festival (Falls Village, CT).

Oskar has been described by the press as a “masterful soloist” (La Nación, Costa Rica) and a “highly expressive clarinetist” (Nevskoye Vremia, Russia). He 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, Argus, Ariel, Cassatt, Daedalus, Escher, Shanghai and Verona 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. He 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.

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