Biography
Described as “an artist with powerful expression” by the Diario Vasco and as “a sensitive chamber musician as well as a virtuoso soloist” by the New York Concert Review, Irantzu Agirre, has played over 400 concerts in Spain, Italy, France and the US, making her New York City Debut at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall in 2008. The program of that concert was titled Notes on Words: Music based on Literature and it was presented by Artist International and sponsored by the Basque Government's Cultural Affairs Department.
Starting her musical studies at the age of seven, Irantzu studied with M. Rosa Calvo-Manzano at the Royal Superior "Queen Sofía" Music Conservatory of Madrid, Spain and with Nancy Allen at The Juilliard School and Emily Mitchell
at the New York University, USA. Irantzu has won more than fifteen prizes in music competitions in Europe and Asia, including six First Prizes at the Union des Femmes Artistes et Musiciennes (Paris), first time in the history of this competition. In addition, she has been awarded with the "Best New Artist of the Year Award" from the Cultura Viva Foundation in Madrid. Winner of the "Honor Prize" at the RCSM Conservatory (solo recipient), Irantzu was granted with the Basque Government Scholarship, the Fulbright Grant from the Cultural Exchange Program between the United States and Spanish Governments, the Nicanor Zabaleta Foundation Scholarship (first harpist ever to win this prize) as well as various Juilliard grants for her studies in New York.
Miss Agirre played her solo debut recital in Madrid in 1999, in the San Sebastián Music Festival in 2007 and at Carnegie Hall, New York City in 2008. Playing in professional orchestras since the age of sixteen, Irantzu has toured with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra and the Basque Symphonic Orchestra in Spain and Portugal, the Philarmonia of the Nations in the United States, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy as well as the Freixenet Santander Festival Orchestra in Spain and France. During her studies at The Juilliard School, Irantzu performed as Principal Harpist at Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall under the baton of Sergiu Commissiona, Kurt Masur, James De Priest, Julius Rudel, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit and Gerard Shwarz to name a few. As a chamber music player, she has collaborated with Sopranos Linda Larson and Dawn Upshawn as well as with musicians of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra, the Mont Claire Ensemble and the Azure Ensemble. An advocator of new music, Irantzu has worked with the composer John Adams and she was selected to take part in the premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar at the Tanglewood Music Festival. As a member of the New Juilliard Ensemble, Irantzu premiered more than thirty pieces, among them one of Yanov-Yanovsky's works. In the past years, Irantzu has worked with young professional composers in New York City to enrich the harp repertoire; among them Cynthia Lee Wong, who composed Songs of Gernika for Soprano, Harp and String Quartet, after a poem by Irantzu written in Basque and based on Bernardo Atxaga's Markak (2008) and Angelica Negrón, who wrote Technicolor for Harp & Electronics (2008).
As an educator, Miss Agirre aims to bring music to all the communities and create a harp ensemble program that will represent the music from diverse cultures. In 2008, Irantzu was selected to give a Master Class for the Long Island Chapter of the American Harp Society and also volunteered at the St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospitals bringing music of different styles to patients in the physical rehabilitation, psychiatric, pediatric, HIV and Cancer units. In the Fall of that same year, she took part in the Police Athletic League Performing Arts Program, teaching music to at risk kids in the South Bronx. Irantzu had taught at The Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts and The Turtle Bay Community Music School in Manhattan. Currently residing in Spain, Miss Agirre is honored to nurture the lives of twelve wonderful harp students in the A Coruña Professional Music Conservatory.