"Zen Garden": Nature, Life and Love I
ADDA Symphonic Orchestra Alicante
Patrick Messina — clarinet
Josep Vicent — principal conductor
Dvořák — Carnival Overture
Tan Dun — Three Lotuses in the Zen Garden
Clarinet Concerto (*World Premiere*)
Dvořák — Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"
INDIVIDUAL TICKET SALES: From 30 July 2026.
PATRICK MESSINA — clarinet
Patrick Messina is one of the world’s most distinguished clarinetists, with an acclaimed career spanning both Europe and the United States—where he completed part of his training. A protégé of violinist Yehudi Menuhin—who dubbed him “the magical clarinettist”—Messina is also a renowned pedagogue in France and beyond.
Of Spanish and Sicilian descent, Messina was born in Nice, France. He studied clarinet with Guy Deplus and Michel Arrignon, winning top prizes in both clarinet and chamber music at the Paris Conservatoire at just eighteen years old.
He later moved to the United States to continue his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music in New York.
In 1992, he gained wide recognition upon being named a laureate of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.
He won several major competitions in the US: the East and West International Auditions (New York), the Heida Hermanns International Music Competition, and the Ima Hogg National Competition in Houston. In 1996, he began working with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York.
In 2003, he returned to France to become principal clarinetist of the Orchestre National de France under Kurt Masur.
Messina has also served as guest principal clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Orchestre National de France, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Cannes Orchestra, ADDA Symphonic Orchestra Alicante, Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, and Tokyo’s Kioi Sinfonietta, under conductors including Riccardo Muti, Bernard Haitink, Trevor Pinnock, Yehudi Menuhin, Daniele Gatti, Jaap van Zweden, Josep Vicent, Sasha Goetzel, and Kristjan Järvi.
In chamber music, Messina has collaborated with Daniel Hope, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Philippe Bianconi, Edita Gruberova, Garrick Ohlsson, Fabrizio Chiovetta, Antoine Tamestit, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Kian Soltani, Lise Berthaud, Edgar Moreau, the Fine Arts Quartet, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Philharmonia Berlin Quartett.
He is an Honorary Member of the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London, where he has been a visiting professor since 2011, and also teaches at the École Normale Alfred Cortot in Paris.
His interpretation of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, conducted by Riccardo Muti, was recorded and released by Harmonia Mundi. The recording received outstanding critical acclaim and was hailed as “one of the greatest interpretations of the past twenty years”.