Espina- Schwartzman Duo - Kaleidoscope Arts Concert Series 2026

Saturday, June 13

7:30pm - 9:30pm

Two masterworks from 1945

Let Oskar Espina Ruiz take you on a clarinet journey, where precision meets passion and notes become stories. Joined by Kaleidoscope Arts Artistic Director, Victoria Schwartzman on the piano.

This program is centered around two sonatas for clarinet and piano written in 1945 by two composers who emigrated in opposite directions: Mieczysław Weinberg fled Poland for the Soviet Union, while Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco fled Italy for the United States. Both sonatas are large in scale, but completely different. While Weinberg writes in a poetic language that often becomes enigmatic as in the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, best known as the foremost guitar composer of the twentieth century, writes in a lyrical and virtuosic style. Both sonatas are relatively unknown because they were not published until the 1970s.

The second half of this program presents Prokofiev as possible context for Weinberg, and Pinto-Correia and Poulenc as possible descendants of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s approach.

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 28 (1945)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 128 (1945)

Andreia Pinto-Correia (born 1971): Cantos e danças, for unaccompanied clarinet (2011, revised 2025)

Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Opus 14 (2012)

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Clarinet Sonata, Opus 184 (1962)

Oskar Espina Ruiz, Clarinet

Saturday, June 13, 2026 - 7:30pm

Let Oskar Espina Ruiz take you on a clarinet journey, where precision meets passion and notes become stories.

Oskar Espina Ruiz has emerged as one of the leading clarinetists of his generation, praised as a concerto soloist at the Casals Festival for his “masterful virtuosity” (El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico), and admired for his “rhapsodic ease” and “generous, tender warmth” (The Millbrook Independent) in chamber music collaborations with the top string quartets and piano trios of our time.

He has performed at major concert halls and festivals to high critical acclaim, including 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), Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (Casals Festival, Puerto Rico), Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción (Paraguay) and Bilbao Symphony (Spain).

His 2025-2026 season opened with two concerts with the Grammy Award winning Cuarteto Latinoamericano (Clarinet Quintets by Mozart and Gutiérrez Heras), followed by season performances with the Ulysses, Terra and Cassatt String Quartets, a recital with pianist Victoria Schwartzman, as well as chamber music concerts with UNCSA faculty colleagues.

Highlights of the past two seasons include his Casals Festival debut as soloist with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Alfonso Fuentes’ Clarinet Concerto; a Music Mountain performance of the complete Brahms Clarinet Sonatas with pianist Misha Dichter; as well as his new recital program, Brilliant American Women Composers of Our Time, with works by Teresa Carreño, Amy Beach, Gabriela Lena Frank, Eleanor Alberga, Jessie Montgomery, Joan Tower, Jennifer Higdon, and Claudia Montero.

Oskar Espina Ruiz holds an MFA from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, and a DMA from Stony Brook University, where his major teachers were Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima. While at the European Mozart Academy, flutist Aurèle Nicolet was one of his coaches and mentors. From 2009 to 2011 he was on the clarinet faculty at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, in San Juan, PR, and since 2011 is clarinet artist-faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, currently serving as associate professor.

Victoria Schwartzman, Piano

Artistic Director of Kaleidoscope Arts

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Victoria Schwartzman (formerly Mazin) performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Victoria has appeared with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra chamber players, at Bard Music Festival, at the Music Mountain Festival, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Hall, at Summit Music Festival, at Bargemusic, in the Gessner- Schocken concert series in Cambridge, WMP Concert Hall, and the Nicolas Roerich Museum concert series in New York City. As a member of the Yanvar Trio, she was a prizewinner in the Val-Tidone Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Zinotti International Chamber Music Competition, both in Italy. After graduating from Jerusalem Conservatory, Victoria continued her education at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. While pursuing various degrees in solo and chamber music performance, she was selected to perform in masterclasses given by Dmitri Bashkirov, Menahem Pressler, and Richard Goode, among others. Her principal teachers include Irina Kivaiko, Issak Kossov, Victor Rosenbaum, Sally Pinkas, Eda Shlyam, and Eteri Andjaparidze. As a soloist with orchestra, Victoria has performed with the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, the New Westchester Symphony Orchestra, the Longy School of Music Chamber Orchestra, and the Riverside Orchestra. She has performed at the Quartet Program in Pennsylvania and participated in the Tel-Hai International Piano Festival in Israel and the Lyrica Chamber Music Festival in New Jersey. Also active in the field of opera and art song, Victoria was a vocal coach and accompanist at the Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Bard Music Festival, the Brevard Music Center, the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute, and the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival in Graz, Austria. Victoria is as committed to performance as she is to education. She has given a piano masterclass in various schools and colleges and master's class in Russian vocal repertoire at Queens College, NY. She is on the coaching faculty at Montclair State University, and the piano faculty at the Bard College Preparatory Division. She joined the AIMS in Graz faculty during the summer of 2024. Victoria is a Steinway Artist.