Joaquin Valdepeñas was winner of the 2003 Juno award for best classical recording (the Jacques Hetu Concertos) and is considered one of the most distinguished clarinettists of his generation. He is principal of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, makes international appearances as soloist, chamber musician and conductor and has performed at festivals throught the world including those of Aspen, Banff, Curitiba Brazil, Casals, Edinburgh, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Nagano Japan and Vancouver. He has performed with musicians such as Barbara Bonney, Joshua Bell, Vladimir Feltsman, Glenn Gould, Steven Isserlis, Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Pinchas Zukerman, and has also collaborated with the American, Emerson, Muir, St. Lawrence, Orford and Ying string quartets and the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the International Sejong Soloists. Commissioning many works by Canadian composers, he gave the American première of Arias for clarinet and orchestra by Michael Colgrass with the Buffalo Philharmonic. He made his European début with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra on BBC television, Sir Andrew Davis conducting, and has recorded the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra. He has also recorded extensively for CBC, Centrediscs, Naxos, Sony and Summit and was featured both as clarinettist and conductor in a PBS documentary about the Aspen Music Festival. He is currently on the faculty of the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. As an

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