ASSOCIATION OF DOMINICAN
CLASSICAL ARTISTS (ADCA)
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Copyright 2011 Association of Dominican Classical Artists (ADCA) ®
Cathedral Station, P.O. Box 350636
New York, NY 10025-1389
Darwin Aquino
Composer, violinist, and conductor hailed in his country as the "new star of Dominican orchestral conducting," Darwin Aquino is the principal conductor of the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic. He has received numerous national awards, including “Hildegard Behrens Young Artist 2010," "Cultural Personalities," "Outstanding Youth Jaycees 72," and "Man of the year." He is the first Composer in Residence of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic, a distinction awarded by the Ministry of Culture. The young virtuoso was born in Santo Domingo in 1979.
Maestro Aquino is violinist with the Dominican Trio, for which he has transcribed the most representative works of Dominican classical music. He teaches violin and composition at Academia Dominicana de Música and Estudio Diná de Educación Musical and coordinates the Musicabierta project, which is dedicated to contemporary musical creation.
As a violinist, he has played in the Santander Summer Courses in Spain and the Orchestral Festival of the Americas in Puerto Rico as the founder of YOA Orchestra of the Americas and the Youth Orchestra of Latin America. He has played under the batons of Valery Gergiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Benjamin Zander, Leonard Slatkin, Carlos Miguel Prieto, in concerts all over the American continent.
Maestro Aquino studied composition at the National Conservatory of Strasbourg in France with Maestro Ivan Fedele and received the Italian composition prize Musici Mojanesi for his work La Nuit des Sens for violin, violoncello and piano, published by Ars Publica Edizioni and Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) France.
At age 22, he won the academic composition prize of the IV Music Festival of Santo Domingo conducted by maestro Philippe Entremont, who commissioned from him a piece for orchestra for the closing concert of the VI Festival.
His orchestral works have been premiered by Orquesta Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simon Bolívar, YOA-Orquesta de las Américas, Orquesta del Festival Musical de Santo Domingo and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de la Republica Dominicana.
He has been guest composer at a number of international festivals, including the New Music ISCM Festival in Miami, Festival Latinoamericano de Musica, SMASH Contemporary Music Festival in Salamanca,Festival ATempo de Caracas, Foro Internacional de Nueva Música en México, and the Festival Musical de Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic.
He was selected to attend international master classes in conducting with maestro Colin Metters, in Germany, and in Spain with maestro Enrique García Asensio.
Maestro Aquino is a graduate, summa cum laude, of the Pontifica Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra with a B.A. in Economics..
