The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B♭ clarinet, it is usually pitched in B♭, but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B♭ clarinet. Bass clarinets in other keys, notably C and A, also exist, but are very rare. Bass clarinets regularly perform in orchestras, wind ensembles and concert bands, and occasionally in marching bands, and play an occasional solo role in contemporary music and jazz in particular.
Daniel Dorff is an American classical composer.
Walter Sinclair Hartley was an American composer of contemporary (classical) music.
Lucien Cailliet was a French-American composer, conductor, arranger and clarinetist.
William Overton Smith was an American clarinetist and composer. He worked extensively in modern classical music, Third Stream and jazz, and was perhaps best known for having played with pianist Dave Brubeck intermittently from the 1940s to the early 2000s. Smith frequently recorded jazz under the name Bill Smith, but his classical compositions are credited under the name William O. Smith.
Ronald Caravan is an American classical musician. He is a clarinetist, saxophonist, teacher, composer, and arranger.
Dan Welcher is an American composer, conductor, and music educator.
Hans Gál OBE was an Austrian composer, pedagogue, musicologist, and author, who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1938.
James Houlik is an American classical tenor saxophonist and saxophone teacher.
James Mark is an American-born conductor, clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger and educator based in Canada. He is Conductor of Musica Viva New Brunswick, Conductor Emeritus of the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra and appears frequently as guest conductor with a number of orchestras and wind ensembles. Additionally, he was Principal Conductor of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra from 1982–83 and again from 1994–2010, making it "one of the best youth orchestras in Canada". James Mark is Professor Emeritus of Music at Mount Allison University, where he taught clarinet, saxophone, instrumental conducting and secondary music education for more than twenty years. He was also director of the Mount Allison Symphonic Band and mentor to the CMEA award-winning Saxville Quartet. He continues to be in demand as an adjudicator and clinician. He performs regularly on clarinet and saxophone and has appeared across Canada and the United States with numerous regional, national and international broadcasts. Mark holds the Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music (1961), the Master of Music from Hartt College of Music (1969) and the Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan (1978). He is also an Associate of the Royal College of Music, London, where he was twice awarded the Arthur Somervell Prize for Wind Instruments by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Mark has been a member of the U.S. Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. and taught music at the high school level in Massachusetts.
Karel Krautgartner was a Czech jazz and classical clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, composer, conductor and teacher.
Gary Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002. He currently teaches on the music faculty at the University of Toronto.
Alan Shulman was an American composer and cellist. He wrote a considerable amount of symphonic music, chamber music, and jazz music. Trumpeter Eddie Bailey said, "Alan had the greatest ear of any musician I ever came across. He had better than perfect pitch. I've simply never met anyone like him." Some of his more well known works include his 1940 Neo-Classical Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano and his A Laurentian Overture, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1952 under the baton of Guido Cantelli. Also of note is his 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra which was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic with cellist Leonard Rose and conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos. Many of Shulman's works have been recorded, and the violinist Jascha Heifetz and jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw have been particular exponents of his work both in performance and on recordings.
Yona Ettlinger was a clarinetist who played and taught in Israel, France and England. Ettlinger is considered a prominent classical clarinetist of his generation, and one of Israel's notable instrumentalists. His musicianship and unique sound influenced the art of clarinet playing in Israel and Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Many clarinet soloists and orchestra players of different countries were among his students.
Erich Urbanner is an Austrian composer and teacher.
Herbert Couf was an American clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, music store owner, music instrument manufacturer executive, and an importer of music instruments. Couf had been the principal clarinetist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray until he retired to open Royal Music Center and commit his full attention to the business of music.
The woodwind section, which consists of woodwind instruments, is one of the main sections of an orchestra or concert band. Woodwind sections contain instruments given Hornbostel-Sachs classifications of 421 and 422, but exclude 423
Kōmei Abe was a neo-classical Japanese composer who specialized in string quartets. He performed both as cellist and clarinetist.
Steven Richman is a GRAMMY Award-nominated American conductor and writer. He is music director of Harmonie Ensemble/New York, which he founded in 1979, and the Dvořák Festival Orchestra of New York.
