Alfonso Padilla
Alfonso Padilla is a Spanish saxophonist with great international prominence, as proven by the number of concerts, recitals and master classes he has offered in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, France, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Switzerland, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, and the USA.
An eclectic musician, Alfonso Padilla’s musical tastes and interests encompass many diverse genres and styles, although his current work is mainly focused on the performance of classical and contemporary music, and saxophone teaching.
He is part of various musical groups and projects, such as the Ziryâb Saxophone Quartet, the Duo Icarus (saxophone and guitar) along with Alberto Plaza, and regularly collaborates with groups and ensembles specializing in performing contemporary music such as Zahir Ensemble.
Alfonso Padilla’s other focus is education and saxophone teaching, having extensive teaching experience since 1998. He is a saxophone professor at the Conservatorio Superior de Müsica “Manuel Castillo” of Seville and he regularly conducts masterclasses in Spain and abroad. These include the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (Tallinn, Estonia); Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano, Switzerland); Royal Academy of Music of Aahrus – Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium
(Aarhus, Denmark); Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional Boulogne-Billancourt (Paris, France); Conservatorio “Jaccopo Tomadini” (Unine, Italy); Conservatorio “L. Perosi” (Campobasso, Italy); Institute of Music “Frederik Chopin” (Warsaw, Poland)
Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium (Feldkirch, Austria); Koninklijk Conservatorium (Brussels, Belgium); Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo do Porto (Oporto, Portugal); and Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa ESMAE (Lisbon, Portugal).
He has also been invited to teach master classes in different courses and international sessions like Eventosax (2011 and 2014) in Velletri (Rome, Italy) together with Fabrizio Paolleti, and the International Saxophone Week Porto 2012 (Portugal), alongside other professors such as J.M. Londeix, Arno Bornkamp, and Henk van Twillert.
In 2014, he toured the USA, conducting seminars and offering recitals at four prestigious American universities: Messiah College (Mechanisburg, PA); Susquehanna University (Selinsgrove, PA); Mansfield University (Mansfield, PA); and Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY). In 2015 he was invited to the Vienna Saxfest (Autria) where he played as a soloist at the ORF Radiokulturhaus.
More recently, Alfonso Padilla joined the V Seminario/encuentro entre Compositores y Saxofonistas at Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina) in 2016, developing lectures and offering recitals in Buenos Aires and La Plata. He has also been invited as a guest soloist with the CYC Wind Orchestra, and teaching at the National University of Chiayi at the 1st Asian Saxophone Congress held in Chiayi, Taiwan in December 2016.
Alfonso Padilla studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Música “Rafael Orozco” of Córdoba (Spain), having Bernardo Zagalaz and Manuel Ureña as his professors. He has also taken master classes with leading saxophone figures, the most outstanding being Daniel Deffayet, J.M. Londeix, Claude Delangle, Vincent David, Phillip Braquart, and Gilles Tressos, among others.He also regularly receives classes from Eric Devallon, Professor at the CNR de Bayonne (France), and from Arno Bornkamp, international soloist and professor at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Netherlands).