Santiago Del Curto, clarinet

Meet Santiago

Santiago performs on Show 430.

Santiago Del Curto (Clarinet), 15, hails from Long Island City, New York. He studies clarinet with Pavel Vinnitsky at the Special Music School in New York City. His former teachers are Katherine Cooke and Liam Burke. He has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, the Festival de Musica dos Capuchos in Portugal, the Stowe Tango Music Festival, Aston Magna Music Festival, the Salida Aspen Concerts, Blue Note, and the National Theater Concert Hall in Taiwan. His solo engagements include concerts with Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. Santiago’s recent highlights include a solo performance of Florence Price’s “Adoration” with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center in March 2023, a performance of Mozart Clarinet concerto as a winner of 2022 Kaufman Music Center Concerto Competition, and a performance at Carnegie Hall as a member of NYO2. After hearing Santiago’s kindergarten concert, the latin jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera wrote a piece for him called “Blues for Santi”. Since then, Santiago has performed with Mr. D’Rivera at the Montclair Jazz Festival, at the Martina Arroyo Foundation Gala, and at the Blue Note in New York City. He also was featured on the Vandoren’s Commercial with Mr D’Rivera. Santiago’s live performance from Aspen Music Festival has been aired multiple times throughout the United States on the Peabody Award-winning classical music radio program, Performance Today. He is featured on a recording of Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion” on the award-winning album Live at the 2016 Stowe Tango Music Festival. In 2020 and 2021, Santiago participated in the Clarinet Maestro Festival where he studied with Yehuda Gilad, Afendi Yusuf, Eric Abramovitz, and other faculty. He also had masterclasses with Stephen Williamson, Anthony McGill, and Ricardo Morales. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Santiago started composing electronic music under the artist name 27 Diamond. His compositions have thousands of streams on Spotify and other online music streaming platforms. Outside of music, Santiago enjoys building and fixing computers and playing soccer.