Berginald Rash & Fiona Gryson
Biography Berginald Rash & Fiona Gryson
Berginald Rash
Hailed for his ‘especially stylish’ playing [The Guardian], acclaimed American-Irish clarinetist Berginald Rash quickly set himself apart as a promising young musician when at the age of seventeen he became a Young Artist for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, served as guest bass clarinetist with the Virginia Symphony in their performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad”, and, after his Master’s, joined the Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival for its inaugural Orchestral Academy.
Comfortable as both chamber musician and soloist, he is a founding member of the Mondrian Trio with whom he has won the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival’s (formerly Great Music in Irish Houses) 2015 Support Act- Residency, was selected to participate in the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra’s chamber music ensemble coaching at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland with Gottfried van der Goltz, director of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and has been invited to the Boyne Music Festival 2016 Young Artist Programme. He is also a founding member of London-based Decus Ensemble and can be heard playing basset horn with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Wind Ensemble on their recording of Mozart’s Serenade No. 10 for winds in B-flat, K. 361. He has performed Scott McAllister’s Black Dog with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Wind Ensemble as the grand prize winner of the 2007-2008 Concerto Competition, and, in 2016, performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto K. 622 with the Dublin Symphony Orchestra at Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin. With harpist Fiona Gryson, Berginald has performed as part of the online ‘Sundays @ Noon’ concert series at the Hugh Lane Gallery (Dublin, Ireland) which will also be featured on NearTV FM. The duo has performed at the Kaleidoscope Night music series in 2020, the Boyne Music Festival 2018 as well as the Tara Summer Festival 2018.
Mr. Rash has been heard with such orchestras as the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony, and the Orchestra of the Swan, among others. He’s made his debut at the BBC Proms, Ghent Music Festival, Snape Maltings Proms, and in some of Europe and the UK’s leading concert halls. He has performed on BBC 3’s In Tune with Sean Rafferty and can be heard on studio recordings on the Signum Classics, Orchid Classics, and NMC record labels. He has collaborated with members of such orchestras as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt hr-Sinfonieorchester, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ ConTempo Quartet among others and has been a featured soloist at the National Concert Hall.
Equally comfortable in contemporary, film, and classical styles of music, Mr. Rash commissioned T. G. Gellar-Goad to write Sketches in Realization, a quintet for E-flat clarinet and string quartet and later received Forest Primeval, a new work written for him by Mr. Gellar-Goad and scored for narrator, clarinet, cello, harp/synthesizer, and drum kit. As Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Vivre Musicale he has also commissioned Irish composer, David Coonan to write Sonnets of Dark Love based on Sonetos del amor oscuro by Federico García Lorca and scored for countertenor or soprano, tenor, violin, cello, clarinet, and piano. In 2021, with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland's Agility Award, Berginald began collaborating with photographer Ishmael Claxton. Mr. Rash can be heard in the film score to Date with Misadventure directed by Matthew Smyth and in Angela directed by Marilia Nogueira both with film score composed by Natasa Paulberg.
Mr. Rash has participated in the European Chamber Music Teachers Association gathering where he received chamber music masterclasses by various teachers, including Pekka Helasvuo and Marje Lohuaru. He has performed in masterclasses and received coachings with artists such as Jörg Widmann, Ricardo Morales, Mark Nuccio, Ariana Ghez, Ted Soluri, Therese Fahy, Finghin Collins, Peter Tuite, Dairine Ni Mheadhra, Simon Aspell, William Butt, Ann Murray, DBE, and members of the Vogler and Escher quartets. A versatile and skilled pedagogue and clinician in his own right, he has served on the PRIZM Music Camp & International Chamber Music Festival faculty and has given masterclasses at Truman State University, University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point, and Millikin University.
Berginald holds both a Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance, cum laude and Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, cum laude from Florida State University, a Master of Arts in Clarinet Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts where he was a Chancellor’s Award recipient, and a Recital Artist Diploma from the Royal Irish Academy of Music where he was an 1848 Scholar/Teaching Fellow. He also holds a Master of Arts in Spanish and Latin American Cultural and Linguistic studies with a concentration in Applied Linguistics from New York University. His teachers include John Finucane, Matthew Billing, Vicente Alberola, Todd Levy, Steve Barta, Frank Kowalsky, Deborah Bish, and F. Edward Knakal. With the support of the Arts Council of Ireland, he is studies historical clarinet with Marie Ross and Katherine “Waffy” Spencer.
Berginald is a Devon & Burgani Artist on the Fluency series. He has been featured on the cover of the International Clarinet Association’s (ICA) September 2020 publication of The Clarinet with clarinetist Mariam Adam. He is a member of the ICA's Social Media committee with whom he and clarinetist Dr. Sarah Manasreh host the video blog series, “Clarinet & Community”. Mr. Rash is a TEDx speaker, was featured on Classically Black Podcast's “Black Excellence” segment, has been featured on the European Association of Conservatoires’ (AEC) “Strengthening Music in Society” podcast series, and has been a reviewer for BBC Radio 3's Record Review, a presenter on BBC Radio 3's Inside Music, and a contributor on BBC Radio 4's How to Play. He has been featured on RTÉ Lyric FM's Full Score with Liz Nolan and has been awarded the Arts Council of Ireland’s 2020 Music Bursary as well as a 2021 Arts Council Agility Award. In addition to his artistic work, Mr. Rash is a strong advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice and, in 2021, served as a panelist for Compear Global Education Network’s 2022 PIEoneer Award-nominated (CGEN) panel, Black Male Reflections on Identity, Self-Empowerment & Scholarship in Global Education, and has, since its inaugural event in 2022, sat on the planning committee for CGEN’s Global Respectful Disruption Summit. In 2022, Berginald joined Chamber Music Scotland's Board of Trustees, Dublin’s Crash Ensemble’s Board of Directors, and the faculty of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's YOLA National Festival.
Fiona Gryson
is an award-winning harpist based on the border of Meath and Dublin. Fiona enjoys a varied career as a freelance harpist and teacher, and has performed as Principal Harpist with the RTÉ National Symphony and Concert Orchestras, the Irish Chamber and the Ulster Orchestras. As a soloist and member of ensembles, she has performed extensively nationally and internationally, both live and on television and radio. She is in demand as a teacher and is director of her own student harp ensemble. Her awards include the John Vallery Memorial Prize at the Irish Freemasons Young Musician of the Year and the RTÉ Lyric FM Instrumental Bursary at Sligo Feis Ceoil.
Fiona graduated with a Masters Degree in Music Performance from DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama where she studied with Denise Kelly-McDonnell, having previously graduated with a First Class Honours BMus degree and the Nuala Levins Perpetual Award for Pedagogy. She also completed postgraduate studies in Harp at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado, Milan with Irina Zingg.
