Angel Luis Castano was born in San Sebastian, Spain, in 1969. He began to study accordion with Agustin Santano at the age of 5 and after winning most of the Spanish National competitions, he moved to France to improve his studies with Max Bonnay in the Conservatory of Paris. While there he won First Prize in the famous International Competition for Accordion Soloists "Coupe Mondiale" in 1990, in Trossingen, Germany. Afterwards he moved to Denmark, where he studied in the Royal Academy of Music of Copenhagen with the late Professor Mogens Ellegaard (specialising in Contemporary Music). He now lives in Spain where he is consolidating his musical career and collaborates with other composers to write music specifically for accordion. Angel Luis Castano is a musician and performer of the highest standard. His technical excellence serves perfectly to express his emotional and spiritual playing through the contemporary musical language. Few elements of his performance (amongst others) made the biggest impression on me: His performance reflects incredible inner energy and inner strength, therefore is very convincing He plays with incredible tonal and form-structural clarity. Forms of the compositions are absolutely clear, which indicates real deep knowledge and understanding for the pieces performed, as well as their psychological, emotional and spiritual contents. He also "plays" with his tone remarkably well, producing a whole spectre of different tone-colours and effects His "voice-leading" in such structurally complicated compositions is amazingly clear. A very, very impressive performance. |
