March 2021, London, UK

ONE TO WATCH in April’s issue of the Gramophone magazine.

In 2019 the Slovenian clarinettist Blaž Šparovec, who turns 27 this months, won the Carl Nielsen Clarinet Competition – an event with a formidable track record of helping to establish young musicians of enormous talent and promise. On the jury of this competition was Michael Collins, who said that “Blaž  was the deserving winner … he showed immense qualities from the start and is able to communicate with the audience his joy of music-making. His technical skill and warm sound will make him stand out as a true individual.” Part of Šparovec’s prize, in common with the other winners of the competition, was to make an album. Reunited with the Odense Symphony Orchestra during the period of respite from lockdown last summer, Šparovec has recorded the clarinet concertos by Nielsen and Copland alongside works by Lustlawski and a live recording of Debussy’s Première Rhapsody. The album will be release on Orchid Classics. Šparovec is now resident in Germany, where since 2015 he has been principal clarinettist of the Gürzenich-Orchestra Cologne, and is also Associate Professor at the University of Arts in Berlin. As his playing at the Nielsen Competition demonstrated – and this is still available to watch on medici.tv – Šparovec brings immense character to the music he plays and his chamber-like rapport with the orchestral musicians is immediately engaging. The album is out in July and will of course be reviewed in Gramophone.