Description
Born in Nice to Sicilian and Spanish parents, Patrick Messina began his career in the United States, particularly in New York in 1996 when he won the First Prize at the East and West Artists International Auditions, allowing him to perform in recital at Carnegie Hall. Alongside his solo activities, he regularly worked for six years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, under the direction of James Levine, Valery Gergiev, and Leonard Slatkin.
Patrick Messina has been invited as a soloist by prestigious ensembles such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Tan Dun, Daniele Gatti, Kristjan Järvi, Jaap Van Zweden, Mykola Dyadyura, John Axelrod, and Trevor Pinnock. He has also performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Cannes Orchestra, the Paris Chamber Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Île-de-France, the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, the Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra (South Korea), the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, the Kioi Sinfonietta (Tokyo), among others. In 2010, he premiered Bechara El Khoury’s Concerto “Autumn Pictures” with the Paris Chamber Orchestra at the Châtelet under the direction of Olari Elts. His name has appeared in major international festivals such as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Gstaad, Spoleto, Savannah, Mitte Europa, Pablo Casals, Les Flâneries Musicales, Menton, Wissembourg, Berlioz, and Pontlevoy.
Highly appreciated and sought-after in chamber music, his partners have included Daniel Hope, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Simone Dinnerstein, Nicolas Stavy, François Chaplin, Edita Gruberova, Chen Reiss, Tatjana Vassiljeva, Gautier Capuçon, the Philharmonia Quartett Berlin (from the Berliner Philharmoniker), the Diotima Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet, and the Beaux-Arts Trio. In October 2012, his new album dedicated to Mozart was released, featuring the famous Clarinet Concerto, conducted by Riccardo Muti. During the 2012/13 season, he performed in numerous countries: China, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, and the United States with musicians such as Daniel Hope, Garrick Ohlsson, Mykola Dyadyura, the Orion String Quartet, Ibrahim Maalouf, Vincent Segal, Cynthia Phelps, Haochen Zhang, David Finckel, and Wu Han.
Patrick Messina began his training at the Conservatoire de Nice before continuing his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he obtained, before the age of 18, First Prizes in clarinet and chamber music in the class of Guy Deplus and later Michel Arrignon. In the meantime, he participated in the World Youth Orchestra (conducted by W. Rowicki) and the French Youth Orchestra (conducted by E. Krivine). In 1992, he became a laureate of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation. Thanks to a Lavoisier scholarship awarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he settled in the United States to further his education at the Cleveland Institute of Music under Franklin Cohen. A year later, after winning First Prizes at the East & West Artists International Auditions in New York, he was invited to give a recital at the Weill Recital Hall of the famous Carnegie Hall. He then continued to achieve success in the most prestigious American competitions, including the Houston Ima Hogg Young Artists Competition (First Prize, 1996) and the Heida Hermanns International Young Artists Competitions (First Prize, 1998). Patrick Messina has been the Principal Clarinet of the Orchestre National de France since 2003 and has served as an artistic advisor for BuffetCrampon since 2004. Since March 2010, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Patrick teaches at the École Normale Cortot in Paris.
