Welcome to Carles Riera's web site!

Carles Riera is a specialist in performing on the historical clarinet. His activities as a chamber musician take him around the world, both with his two groups Stadler Trio and Salmoè, and as a guest artist with numerous ensembles. He has played in halls such as the Frick Collection in New York, the Sidney Opera House (Australia), the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Paris Opéra (Palais Garnier) & Théatre des Champs Elisées, Köln's Philharmonia, Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Metropolitan Hall in Tokio. He possesses an extensive collection of some 40 clarinets, chalumeaux and basset horns, which he uses for concerts and recordings.

Carles Riera is the Director of the Escola Municipal de Música J. M. Ruera in Granollers (Barcelona). He is also running the course on Historical Performance, organized by "La Caixa" Foundation in different Spanish cities, since its beginning. Nowadays, the course is organized by the Granada Festival in this magnificent city. He is on the faculty of the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona (Musikhochschule level), where he teaches Clarinet and Pedagogy.

Over the years Carles Riera has made numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon-Archiv, Philips, Astrée-Auvidis, Glossa, Ricercar and Virgin, with groups such as The English Concert (Trevor Pinnock), The XVIIIth Century Orchestra (Frans Brüggen), Le Concert des Nations (Jordi Savall), Europa Galante (Fabio Biondi) and Nachtmusique (Eric Hoeprich). He has also played with Octophoros (Paul Dombrecht) & the New World Basset Horn Trio. He has performed Mozart's Quintet with the Smithson Quartet (Jaap Schröder) and La Real Cámara (Emilio Moreno), always with a basset clarinet.

On modern instruments, he has played with the Orquestra de Cambra Teatre Lliure (modern music) and the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada both conducted by Josep Pons, the Orquesta Filharmonia de Galicia conducted by Antoni Ros-Marbà, the Bach Collegium (München) and the Zurich Clarinet Trio, among others. He has been invited to give master classes and courses at the Universities of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina. He has been a founder member of the JONC (National Youth Orchestra of Catalonia) and has been in its artistic committee during all the years Josep Pons has been conducting the group. He has been invited as musical adviser by the Paris Conservatoire, the Course "Formation supérieure au métier de l'orchestre classique et romantique" in Saintes (France) and "la Caixa" Fellowships Committee in Barcelona and Madrid, among others.

As a member of the Stadler Trio (Eric Hoeprich, Carles Riera and Albert Gumí), he has played throughout Europe, The United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Additionally the ensemble has made three recordings: one for Philips and two for Glossa. The ensemble's first recording for Glossa features Riera's own completion of Mozart's unfinished Adagio KV 580a for clarinet and 3 basset horns, which has received high praise from in reviews of the disc. He has also completed a quintet by the same composer, recorded on the CD: Nachtmusique, Gran Partitta, Glossa, where he plays first basset horn on a copy of a Theodor Lotz instrument. For the same company he has been clarinetist and Tonmeister (Krommer CD).

Carles Riera has also specialized in educational programmes. He has been preparing and introducing numerous concerts. He has created his own Trio Salmoè, 3 clarinet players who perform on 24 instruments in the same concert, and the Salmoè Ensemble, which tries to reach the audience in a new way.

Carles Riera has published many articles in several journals and pedagogy magazines. Together with Colin Lawson, he has edited a Divertimento (wind octet) by Vicent Martín i Soler (Dinsic Publications). In addition to his career as a performer and scholar of the early clarinet, he frequently gives lectures on music appreciation, and has published three books in the field: Audició I & II (Dinsic) and Sons en el Temps (Fundació "La Caixa").

In the past few years Carles Riera has also coordinated and presented different pedagogical concerts for the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada (Josep Pons), the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, and the Orquestra Barroca de Mallorca (Barry Sargent) among others. He has written a musical play on "the best scherzi" in classical music (Teatro Lara in Madrid).

Born in Granollers in 1956, Carles Riera studied with composers Josep Maria Ruera and Juan José Olives. He studied early clarinet with Colin Lawson, Hans Rudolf Stalder and Eric Hoeprich. After graduating from the Conservatory, Carles Riera attained a Postgraduate Diploma in Early Clarinets, Chalumeaux and Basset Horns from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. As a recorder player he was a student of Romà Escalas and Marijke Miessen. At the same time he was studying Architecture at Barcelona University. He is also a graduated on modern clarinet with first class honours B.Mus.