Mark Van de Wiel

Recordings include Ben Foskett’s Hornet and Phillip Cashian’s Blue Circus on NMC, Flint Juventino Beppe’s Distant Words with the Philharmonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy, works by Alissa Firsova on Vivat, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on Psalmus, and the Nielsen, Phibbs and Mozart concertos on the Signum label.

Mark has been the clarinettist with Endymion since its formation in 1980. Other chamber music collaborators have included Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pascal Rogé, Geoffrey Parsons, Elizabeth Leonskaja, Kate Royal, the Quartetto Camargo Guarnieri of São Paolo, and the Brodsky Quartet, with whom he gave the London premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Hymn to Artemis Locheia.  With Zsolt-Tihamėr Visontay and Yefim Bronfman he gave several performances of Bartok’s Contrasts in the Philharmonia’s Bartok series Infernal Dance.

Born in Northampton and educated at Merton College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music, Mark was appointed principal clarinettist with Welsh National Opera and subsequently with Glyndebourne Touring Opera. He joined the Philharmonia as principal clarinet in 2000, and the London Sinfonietta in 2002. He is also principal with the London Chamber Orchestra (with whom he has appeared as soloist at La Scala, Milan), For several years he was the clarinet and basset horn soloist in Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito at the Bayerisches Staatsoper. Mark is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, where he is a Professor, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Northampton University. For many years he was the clarinet professor for the I, Culture Orchestra, and for the British Isles Music Festival. Mark is a committed teacher, and has given masterclasses world-wide.

Future plans include the world premiere at Kings Place in London of a new Clarinet Quintet (with the Brodsky Quartet), and solo pieces, by Joseph Phibbs, which Mark commissioned jointly with Jouko Heikura, to be released on Signum together with the Mozart Quintet, performances of the Debussy Premiere Rhapsodie with the Philharmonia and Santtu-Matias Rouvali in London and Madrid, the premiere recording of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Hymn to Artemis Locheia for clarinet quintet, the premiere recording of Anna Clyne’s Strange Loops for clarinet quintet, to be released with quintets by Weber and Ruth Gipps, an album of Clarinet Concertinos with the Philharmonia and Rouvali, and a new Clarinet Concertino from Jonathan Dove, commissioned by Mark jointly with the Philharmonia, to be premiered in London with the Philharmonia and Rouvali, all to be released on Signum.