Eneko Iriarte Velasco

Eneko Iriarte was born in Irun (Spanish Basque Country) on 11 September 1987. He is currently principal clarinet of the Vaasa Orchestra (Finland), where he has been working since January 2018.

In the course of his career, Eneko Iriarte has mainly been trained by José Luis Estellés (Musikene - Spain) and Hermann Stefansson (Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra) at the Orchestra Master Academy, and won a runner-up spot in the Castilla Leon Youth Chamber Music Competition (2009) with the Schumann Trio, and has been a member of several young orchestras such as the NJO (Netherlands), EGO (Basque Country), the Orchestra Academy of the City of Granada and the Lucena Presjovem Orchestra.

Combining his orchestral work at Vaasa, he also works freelance with other orchestras in Europe, such as the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Basque Country and the Spanish National Orchestra. He also performs chamber music and solo recitals at different festivals, such as the Piteå Summer Music Festival (Sweden), the Korsholm Music Festival (Vaasa), Musique à la Ferme (France) and CNDM (Madrid), where he premiered the piece by Ofrenda (Jesús Torres) for solo bass clarinet. He has also performed as a soloist with different orchestras. The last time he was conducted by Miguel Romea with the Vaasa City Orchestra, where in the "second movement, the audience caught its breath when the clarinet sang straight to the hearts" (review by Katarlina Korkana in the Pohjalainen newspaper on the 26th of October 2019).