CAPA Guest Artists: Pedro Rubio and Ana Benavides

Northwestern State University will host the Louisiana Clarinet Symposium Saturday, Jan. 31 in the Fine Arts Annex. College and high school students from throughout the state will attend an intercollegiate master class, panel discussion, mass clarinet choir session and a feature recital with Pedro Rubio on clarinet and pianist Ana Benavides.  The symposium is funded through the Joanna Magale Endowed Professorship.
 
Rubio and Benavides will perform at 5 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Rubio is clarinet professor at the Turina Conservatory in Madrid and bass clarinet professor at the Madrid Superior Conservatory. He earned the Clarinet Performing Diploma from the Royal College of Music in London and the Bass Clarinet Diploma from the Rotterdam Conservatory. 

Since 1991, he has been performing with Benavides. As a duo, they have received prizes in several international music competitions and have participated in festivals such as 30th Clarinet Symposium at the University of Oklahoma; First World Bass Clarinet Convention, Rotterdam; ClarinetFest 2006 in Atlanta; Third and Fourth National Clarinet Congress in Madrid; ClarinetFest 2010 in Austin; ClarinetFest 2011 in Los Angeles and ClarinetFest 2014 in Baton Rouge. 

Rubio and Benavides have recorded six CDs: “Duo Rubens; Pérez Casas, his Work for Clarinet,” “The Spanish Romantic Clarinet vol. I, II and III” and “Spanish Clarinet Pieces from the First Half of the 20th Century.” In 2007, he founded the publishing house Bassus Ediciones whose principal objective is the restoration and retrieval of the Spanish repertoire of the 19th century. Information is available at bassusediciones.com. Rubio is a Rico Performing Artist and plays exclusively on Reserve reeds.