WENTINK, GWYNETH

Gwyneth Wentink was born in 1981 in The Netherlands, the daughter of Hungarian and Dutch musician parents. She had her first harp lesson at the age of five. When she was eight she played Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp with The Netherlands National Youth Orchestra in the De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam, and at the age of ten she performed for Queen Beatrix. She has studied at the Utrecht Conservatory with Erika Waardenburg, completing her studies Cum Laude. She has participated in master-classes with Maria Graf, Susann McDonald, Catherine Michel, Andree Laurens-King and Susanna Mildonian. As a soloist with orchestra, Gwyneth Wentink has performed with I Fiamminghi, the Orquestra Sinfonica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho in Venezuela, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nieuw Sinfonietta at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with the South-West German Radio Orchestra, and orchestras in Norway, Romania, Helsinki and New York. She has given solo harp recitals all over the world, making her London recital début in 1999 at the Wigmore Hall, and her recital début at the Merkin-Hall in New York. With a wide array of awards and prizes, including, in The Netherlands, The Young Music Talent Foundation, Prinses Christina Concours, and abroad the International Nippon Harp Competition in Tokyo, the Torneo Internazionale di Musica in Rome, in 1998 she won the prestigious International Harp Competition in Israel, where she became the youngest contestant ever to win this competition and was given the special Gulbenkian Prize for the best performance of the Concerto for harp and orchestra by Schafer. In 1999 she won the First Prize at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York at the age of seventeen. She is the first solo harpist ever to be awarded this distinction in the forty-year history of Young Concert Artists. She has been awarded the Beracasa Foundation Prize, the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award, in 2000 the Aaron and Irene Diamond Soloist Prize, in 2001 the Richard Hall Foundation Prize and, in 2002, the Netherlands-American Foundation Prize.

Albums featuring this artist are available for download from ClassicsOnline.com
RODRIGO: Concierto serenata / Concierto de Aranjuez (Complete Orchestral Works, Vol. 9)	8.555843