Ricardo Odriozola was born in Bilbao in 1965.
At age six his mother taught him the rudiments of Solfége.
At age seven he awoke to the beauty of music by hearing arias from Don Giovanni on the Radio.
At age eight he knew he wanted to become a musician and developed an interest in the violin, so his mother bought him a guitar.
She had grown up with a violinist older brother (deceased five years before Ricardo was born) and was, perhaps, trying to spare her son the hardships of a violinist’s life.
It didn’t work.
Although Ricardo taught himself to play the guitar (badly) and loved guitar music (Andrés Segovia was a hero), it was the violin that caught his imagination from watching violinists on television. He held his first violin in his hands in the summer of 1975 and proceeded to teach himself to play it (very badly) for the rest of the year.
Around Christmas time his mother posed the question: “which is it going to be, guitar or violin?” A teacher would be needed in order to learn either instrument properly.
The violin won, while the guitar has remained a much loved secondary instrument.
Prominent performers tend to name their better known teachers in their biographical sketches.
Where possible, Ricardo likes to give credit to every single one of his tutors. Between 1976 and 1993 Ricardo studied with
Ernesto Ayo (January-June 1976)
Demetrio Amigo (1976-1982)
Francisco Comesaña (1980-1982)
Roman Totenberg (1982-1983)
Zvi Zeitlin (1983-1987)
Milan Vitek (1991-1993)
– Ayo meticulously prepared Ricardo for his first violin exam, lending him a 3/4 sized violin.
– Amigo instilled in Ricardo a love of the instrument, put him on stage very early on and created multiple opportunities for him to perform: eight times as soloist with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra and many times around the Biscay province in diverse recital programs. The magnitude of his support and encouragement is hard to overestimate.
– Comesaña showed Ricardo the importance of relaxation and a sound craft and paved the way for the continuation of his studies abroad.
– Totenberg was a very kind-hearted man who lovingly nurtured Ricardo’s progress during his last year of High School as an exchange student in the USA.
– Zeitlin (with whom Ricardo also studied three summers at the Music Academy of the West) taught Ricardo more than can be stated in this space. Most importantly, he instilled in Ricardo very high standards and the determination to pursue artistry without compromise.
– Milan Vitek, in a down to earth, no-nonsense way, helped polish and crystallize a sustainable craft for Ricardo.
Besides his violin teachers, Ricardo is deeply indebted to three other tutors
– Jose Antonio Eguia, a local organist and choral conductor who taught Ricardo harmony between 1977 and 1979, instilling in him a feel for voice leading and the emotional power of harmonies.
– Leslie Hurwitz, who taught a college-level theory class at the Arlington (MA) High School in 1982-23. He went on to write many compositions for Ricardo between 1983 and 2018 and became a life-long friend. His encouragement over a period of 41 years was invaluable.
– Pasquale Tassone – another life-long friend – conducted the Arlington High School Orchestra in that same year. He wrote the very first piece dedicated to Ricardo (in 1982) and has since written another one. Ricardo has performed and recorded Tassone’s music extensively and looks back on more than four decades of friendship with gratitude.
Ricardo has performed as violinist and conductor throughout North America and Europe, with a brief visit to Israel in 2000 and some of the Eurasian countries (Azerbaijan in 2015 and Georgia in 2018).
He has experience as an orchestral player, having played frequently as a substitute with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for ten years (1987-1997), as concertmaster of Bergen’s Collegium Musicum (1988-1998) and as guest concertmaster for the Orquesta de Extremadura in Spain (2008).
He has performed as soloist with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, Sjællands Symfoniorkester, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Deutsches Kamerorkester, Berlin.
His repertoire – including works he has performed with frequency and works he has performed a small number of times – encompasses compositions from the Early Baroque to the newest music. He has performed the cycle of Beethoven’s violin sonatas twice, Beethoven’s piano trios once and J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin three times.
Although he has performed a vast amount of pieces from the standard repertoire, Ricardo’s main passion has always been the discovery and promotion of music by lesser known (at least internationally) composers. He counts his collaborations with composers as among his richest musical experiences. These have included, in Scandinavia, Ruth Bakke, Mogens Christensen, Edvard Hagerup Bull, Ketil Hvoslef, Kenneth Sivertsen, Harald Sæverud and Magnar Åm as well as the aforementioned Pasquale Tassone and Leslie Hurwitz. The so-called “Avgarde Generation” (close in age to Ricardo) has also played a very influential role: Glenn-Erik Haugland, Jostein Stalheim, Eilert Tøsse and Knut Vaage. Of the younger generation, Trine Franksdatter, Sigurd Fischer Olsen and Kari Telstad Sundet have been particularly important.
Two prominent musical personalities from the Rock field have also been of great importance to Ricardo’s musical life:
– David Jackson, the saxophone player with the band Van der Graaf Generator; also a composer and motivator, widely respected for his outstanding musical work with the variously disabled.
– Judge Smith, founding member of the same band; composer, songwriter, poet, film maker and spiritual seeker.
Ricardo has cooperated in several project with both these musicians.
Since 1987 Ricardo has been teaching the violin and chamber music at the Grieg Academy in Bergen – earlier Bergen Music Conservatoire. Teaching remains essential to Ricardo’s general wellbeing and equilibrium, both personal and musical. He keeps an open mind. Rather than handing over a ready-made method, Ricardo treats each student individually. This approach is reflected in the wide variety of musical paths followed by his earlier students: orchestral musicians, teachers, chamber musicians, conductors, pop musicians, entrepreneurs, composers…
- Photograph: Isabel Odriozola ↩︎
