Valdemar Rodriguez

Born in Venezuela, he began his clarinet studies at his father’s side the age of four, was granted the title of performing musician at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory, and his degree in Instrumental Performance, at the University Institute of Musical Studies in Caracas. He has studied with the Eminent Masters Luis Rossi, Gervase De Peyer, Walter Boeykens, Guy Deplus, Kalman Berkes, Anthony Pay and Stanley Drucker.

Valdemar Rodríguez has developed an intense activity as a teacher in Latin America and the Caribbean, thus contributing to raise the technical and artistical level of young clarinet players all over these regions.

In the year 2000, he founded the Latin American Clarinet Academy, where he teaches the most talented young students in Latin America. This institution has been recognized as one of the best in the world by Masters from the principal American Universities and European Conservatories such as Michel Arrignon, Anthony Pay, Walter Seyfarth, Jonathan Cohler, Howard Klug, Luis Rossi, Eddy Vannosthuysen, Kalman Berkes, Joaquín Valdepeñas, Alain Damiens.

Valdemar Rodríguez has coached chamber music ensembles and woodwind sections for orchestras such as: Iberoamerican Orchestra (1997), Andean Countries Community Orchestra (2000), and several other Latin American youth orchestras. He has also worked with the National Youth and Children’s Symphony Orchestra during important productions, featuring concerts with Masters of international recognition such as Giuseppe Sinoppoli, Sir Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado.

Since 1981, he’s principal solo clarinet for the leading Latin American orchestra, The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, with whom he has performed under the baton of renowned conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Metha, Jersy Senko, Eduardo Mata, Krystoff Penderecky, Sergiu Commissiona, Helmuth Rilling, Mstislav Rostropovich, among others, performing and recording in the main concert halls of Asia, Europe and the Americas.

He’s had a notable career as a solo during tours of Latin America, the United States and Europe, performing in Festivals, Recitals , Master Classes and Orchestra Concerts. He performed the first Latin American audition of Wolfang Amadeus Mozart’s Concert for Clarinet and Orchestra Kv. 622, in its original version for Clarinete di bassetto in Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón, in Argentina 1986.

His pasion for Chamber Music has lead him to be a part of stable ensambles such as the Chalumeau Clarinet Quartet, the Eduardo Mata Ensemble and the Latinamerican Woodwinds Quintet, and has performed besides the Americas Quintet and the Berlín Philharmonic Woodwinds Quintet. He has also performed with several venezuelan and foreign string quartets with whom he has toured through important halls such as the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York.