With a hit-single track record spanning four decades, Burt Bacharach became one of the most important composers of popular music in the 20th century, almost equal to such classic tunesmiths as George Gershwin or Irving Berlin. His sophisticated yet breezy productions borrowed from cool jazz, soul, Brazilian bossa nova, and traditional pop to virtually define and undoubtedly transcend the staid forms of Brill Building adult pop during the 1960s.

Born May 12, 1928, in Kansas City, he studied cello, drums, and piano as a child, and was later transplanted to New York City by his father, a syndicated columnist. The time spent in New York gave him a chance to sneak into clubs to watch his bebop heroes Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; he also played in several jazz bands during the 1940s. Bacharach studied music theory and composition at the Mannes School in New York, at Berkshire Music Center, at the New School for Social Research (with Darius Milhaud), at Montreal's McGill University, and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA. A period in the Army interrupted his concentration of music study, but even while serving in Germany, Bacharach arranged and played piano for a dance band. He also played in nightclubs and backed Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers, and Paula Stewart. Bacharach was discharged in 1952, and he married Stewart on December 22nd of the following year.

On returning to the U.S., he began writing songs for Lawrence, Patti Page, the Ames Brothers, and others, but his first hit came from Marty Robbins in late 1957 when Robbins took "The Story of My Life" to the American Top 20 and the number one spot in England. The single was also notable for its co-composer, Hal David, who became Bacharach's songwriting partner and collaborated on most of his big hits. The Bacharach/David team followed up in January 1958 with Perry Como's "Magic Moments," another U.K. chart-topper and a Top Five entry in America. Bacharach's marriage dissolved in 1958, and he left for Europe to tour with Marlene Dietrich. He returned in 1961, and wrote several songs for the Drifters with Bob Hilliard (including "Mexican Divorce" and "Please Stay") before reuniting with Hal David. At an arranging session, he found the singer who became the ultimate vehicle for his songs: Dionne Warwick who was working as a member of the Drifters' backup vocal group, the Gospelaires.

By late 1962, Bacharach and David began focusing most of their composing energy on Warwick, who was the recipient of 15 Top 40 singles from 1962 to 1968 (including the Top Tens "Anyone Who Had a Heart," "Walk on By," "Message to Michael," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Valley of the Dolls," and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"). The duo also remained dominant in England, where Frankie Vaughan, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, the Walker Brothers, and Herb Alpert all hit number one with Bacharach/David compositions. As if their schedule wasn't busy enough throughout the '60s, the songwriters contributed film scores for What's New Pussycat?, Alfie, and Casino Royale. The film featuring their most celebrated score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), won Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Theme Song for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (plus two non-musical Academy Awards). Bacharach and David began working on the musical Promises, Promises in the late '60s; it won a Tony and a Grammy Award (for cast album) during a popular three-year Broadway run. Bacharach hit the charts himself in 1969, with the show's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" reaching the Top 100. Surprisingly, this was not his only foray into recording; Bacharach had reached number four in the U.K. charts in May 1965 with "Trains and Boats and Planes," and he released several popular solo albums during the late '60s.

The beginning of the '70s looked bright for Burt Bacharach, as the Carpenters took "(They Long to Be) Close to You" to number one in the U.S. in July 1970. The forecast was premature, though, as three of his closest partners -- Hal David, Dionne Warwick, and his second wife Angie Dickinson -- left him. He gathered several accolades for an eponymous 1971 album featuring renditions of his previous hit compositions, but later albums were disappointing and Bacharach's next hit was over a decade in coming. Finally in 1981, he collaborated with Christopher Cross, Carole Bayer Sager, and Peter Allenon the Oscar-winning "Arthur's Theme." Bacharach married Bayer Sager just one year later, and together they wrote Roberta Flack's Top 20 hit "Making Love," as well as "Heartlight" which Neil Diamond took to number five.

Once Bacharach resumed composing he began to hit, and 1986 was one of his finest years, with two American number ones: "That's What Friends Are For" (by an all-star group including Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder) and a duet by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonaldtitled "On My Own." He divorced Sager in 1991, but worked with Dionne Warwick again two years later on "Sunny Weather Love," from her Friends Can Be Lovers album. Also in 1993, Bacharach contributed songs to James Ingram, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Tevin Campbell. Around the same time, many alternative bands began name-checking the hitmaker as an influence, and Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher joined him on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall as well as including a picture of him on the cover of Oasis' Definitely Maybe. BBC-TV focused on Bacharach in a January 1996 documentary, and a three-disc retrospective of his compositions was released by Rhino in 1998. That same year he collaborated with Elvis Costello on the acclaimed Painted From Memory, and was celebrated at an all-star concert at Radio City Music Hall which later formed the basis for the LP One Amazing Night. The 2005 album At This Time found Bacharach writing lyrics for the first time. Tonio K helped with the lyrics, Elvis Costello, Dr. Dre, Chris Botti, and Rufus Wainwright also contributed to the album.

As one of opera’s most controversial artists, Grace-Melzia Bumbry continues to make headlines. With a 50-plus year career she is phenomenally preserved. Critics and audiences around the world continue to cheer this celebrated artist, who garners remarkable coverage and incredible ovations with reviews praising her as a national treasure, spectacular, spiritual and magnificent.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri she became interested in music when, as a little girl, she was taken to concerts of Marian Anderson. Her life was altered forever after this experience and she absorbed every recording of classical music she could get her hands on. She even listened to it on radio when her two brothers, Charles and Benjamin, were not monopolizing it to hear Jazz and Pop. Encouraged by all who knew her singing, Grace, age 16, won first prize in a local radio contest, which awarded her the opportunity to appear on the then famous “Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout Show”, where she sang “O Don Fatale” from Verdi’s Don Carlo.

Grace then began her studies at Boston University and then Northwestern University where she met the lady who would change her life forever. Lotte Lehmann, while giving a Master Class, heard her and invited her to Santa Barbara, California to study at the “Music Academy of the West”, where she was carved into one of the music world’s rare jewels.
Through the influence of Jacqueline Kennedy and the American Embassy in Paris, Bumbry was granted an audition at the Paris Opera, where she was immediately engaged. She made her operatic debut as Amneris in “Aida”. Grace Bumbry was the first person of colour to sing at the house.

Bumbry became a favourite collaborator of the world’s greatest and foremost conductors, such as Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Böhm, Christoph von Do­hnanyi, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Patane, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Sir Georg Solti

American violinist Pamela Frank has established an outstanding international reputation across an unusually varied range of performing activity. In addition to her extensive schedule of engagements with prestigious orchestras throughout the world and her recitals on the leading concert stages, she is regularly sought after as a chamber music partner by today’s most distinguished soloists and ensembles. The breadth of this accomplishment and her consistently high level of musicianship were recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists.

Ms. Frank has appeared with such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the San Francisco Symphony and the Vienna Symphony. She has performed under many esteemed conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Leonard Slatkin and, most regularly, Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman. She appears often at numerous festivals in Europe and the United States, including Aldeburgh, Berlin, Blossom, Bravo! Vail Valley, Caramoor, the Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Verbier.

Her passion for chamber music continues to find a variety of outlets. Her frequent collaborators, drawn from a large group of chamber music colleagues, include Yo-Yo Ma and Tabea Zimmermann. For many years she took part in the Marlboro Festival in Vermont as well as the subsequent Music from Marlboro tours. Ms. Frank has also participated in several of the Isaac Stern chamber music seminars at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Centre as part of a group of performer-colleagues assisting Mr. Stern. Ms. Frank also took part in the Leon Fleisher classes at Carnegie Hall, as well as her own, when they were ongoing.

Thomas Hampson, America’s foremost baritone, hails from Spokane, Washington. He has received many honors and awards for his probing artistry and cultural leadership. Comprising more than 150 albums, his discography includes winners of a Grammy Award, five Edison Awards, and the Grand Prix du Disque. He received the 2009 Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award from the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s first Artist-in-Residence. In 2010 he was honored with a Living Legend Award by the Library of Congress, where he serves as Special Advisor to the Study and Performance of Music in America. Hampson was made honorary professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg and holds honorary doctorates from Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, Whitworth College, and San Francisco Conservatory, as well as being an honorary member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. He carries the titles of Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France, and was awarded the Austrian Medal of Honor in Arts and Sciences.

Thomas Hampson enjoys a singular international career as an opera singer, recording artist, and “ambassador of song,” maintaining an active interest in research, education, musical outreach, and technology. Hampson who was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has won worldwide recognition for thoughtfully researched and creatively constructed programs as well as recordings that explore the rich repertoire of song in a wide range of styles, languages, and periods. Through the Hampsong Foundation which he founded in 2003 he employs the art of song to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding.

She has been called the “Star-Spangled Singer” and “the Heifetz of singers.” In 2002, following a career that had seen her dominate her field for more than four decades, Opera News declared, “Marilyn Horne – whose face and song have been in the light – in so many places, in so many styles, through so many media, for so many years – may be the most influential singer in American history.”

Ms. Horne’s distinguished career has garnered her numerous honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Gramophone magazine. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1995, received the National Medal of Arts in 1992, and has been inducted into the American Classical Music and Hollywood Bowl halls of fame. Among her worldwide prizes are the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters from France’s Ministry of Culture. She was named a National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors recipient in 2009.

Ms. Horne began her music studies with her father and first sang in public at age 2. She studied voice and song/recital works at the University of Southern California and participated in many masterclasses conducted by Lotte Lehmann in Los Angeles and at the Music Academy. With her 60th birthday gala at Carnegie Hall in 1994, Ms. Horne launched the Marilyn Horne Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted exclusively to the art of the vocal recital in the United States. In 2010 the foundation’s programs became part of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall.

Ms. Horne has performed in more than 1,300 recitals, made well over 100 recordings, and received three Grammy Awards. Her most recent release, Marilyn Horne – Just for the Record: The Golden Voice, is a retrospective of her career and includes classical songs, opera, and American standards. Her autobiography, Marilyn Horne: The Song Continues, written with Jane Scovell, was published in 2004.

Ms. Horne was the Academy's Distinguished Alumni Award winner in 1995, has been a member of the Music Academy faculty since 1995, and in 1997 was appointed Voice Program director. She transitioned to the role of Honorary Voice Program Director from 2018 to 2021, and is now Faculty Emeritus.

"Martin Katz must surely be considered the dean of collaborative pianists," said the Los Angeles Times, and Musical America magazine created an award expressly for him: Accompanist of the Year. One of the world's busiest collaborators, he has been in constant demand by the world's most celebrated vocal soloists  for more than five decades. He was fortunate to accompany Marilyn Horne for almost all of that time. He has also appeared and recorded regularly with Frederica von Stade, David Daniels, Jose Carreras, Karita Mattila, Cecilia Bartoli, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathleen Battle, Piotr Beczala, Joseph Calleja to name just a few. Season after season, the world's musical capitals figure prominently in his schedule. 

Mr. Katz is a native of Los Angeles, where he began piano studies at the age of five. He attended the University of Southern California and studied the specialized field of accompanying with its pioneer teacher, Gwendolyn Koldofsky. While yet a student, he was given the unique opportunity of accompanying the classes and lessons of such luminaries as Lotte Lehmann, Jascha Heifetz, Pierre Bernac, and Gregor Piatigorsky. Following his formal education, he held the position of pianist for the US Army Chorus in Washington, D.C. for three years, before moving to New York where his international career began in earnest in 1969.     

In more recent years, invitations to conduct orchestral evenings and operas have come with increasing frequency. Mr. Katz has partnered several of his soloists on the podium for orchestras of the B.B.C., Houston, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, New Haven and Miami. He has also been pleased to conduct several staged productions for the University of Michigan's Opera Theatre, the Music Academy, and San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola program. 

Finally, the professional profile of Martin Katz is completed with his passionate commitment to teaching. For four decades, the University of Michigan has been his home, where he has been happy to chair the School of Music's program in collaborative piano, and also play an active part in operatic productions. He has been a pivotal figure in the training of countless young artists, both singers and pianists, who are now working  all over the world. The University of Michigan has recognized this important work, awarding him the first Artur Schnabel professorship, and more recently named him a Distinguished University Professor. He chose to name this award after his teacher, Gwendolyn Koldofsky, herself a cornerstone at the Music Academy for many decades. In addition to his work at his home school, he is a regular guest teacher at Helsinki's Sibelius Academy, Songfest, Chicago College of Performing Arts, Canadian Operatic Arts Academy, and the New National Theatre of Tokyo.  

Mr. Katz’s comprehensive guide for accompanists, “The Complete Collaborator,” published by Oxford Press, is widely seen as the seminal work on this subject.

Mr. Katz attended the Music Academy in 1964, and was named a recipient of the Academy’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999.

Mr. Mansouri led, brilliantly, two of the most important opera companies in North America, and has directed productions throughout the world. But with one small act, with just one word, Lotfi Mansouri forever changed how audiences experienced the art form: supertitles.

Mr. Mansouri left Teheran, Iran, where he was born in 1929, to study medicine in Los Angeles, but music won out. From 1960 to 1966, he was resident stage director of the Zürich Opera. For the next decade, he served as head stage director at the Geneva Opera, while also directing productions in Europe and the United States. In 1976, Mansouri became general director of the Canadian Opera Company. He introduced Canadian audiences to many works, including Lulu and Death in Venice, and in 1983, revolutionized opera by ushering in supertitles at a performance of Elektra. He moved on to the San Francisco Opera in 1988, where he was general director until 2001. Under Mansouri's leadership, the SFO established the Pacific Visions program to commission new works and to perform little-known ones. The project led to some of the most compelling operas of our time, including Conrad Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons, André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking.

Donald McInnes (1939-2024) appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and l’Orchestre National de France, among others, and for many years was a resident member of Camerata Pacifica. His career included associations with many of the world’s major artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Lynn Harrell, and Yo-Yo Ma.

Mr. McInnes's recordings can be heard on the Columbia, RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, Angel/EMI, and Laurel labels. He introduced many new works for viola, including those commissioned for him by William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, William Bergsma, Robert Suderberg, Paul Tufts, and Thomas Pasatieri.

He was a guest artist and teacher at leading music schools, including the University of Michigan, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the University of Washington, Mr. McInnes was named the 2004 American String Teachers Association Teacher of the Year. He was associated with the Banff Centre in Canada, the Menuhin Schools in both England and Switzerland, and the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in England, as well as festivals at Interlochen, St. Barts, Marlboro, and Sunflower, and the International String Workshop. He was long associated with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles at the Thornton School of Music.

Mr. McInnes was a guest professor at the Royal Conservatory in Barcelona, the Shanghai Conservatory, and the Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Camerata Pacifica, the Music Academy of the West, and USC honored Mr. McInnes with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the International Viola Society presented him with the Silver Alto Clef, its highest honor, at the 2007 International Viola Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

Mr. McInnes was an alumnus of the Music Academy (1954 to 1956), was the Distinguished Alumni Award winner in 2012, and was a member of the faculty from 1982 to 2012.

Newly appointed violist of the Takács Quartet, Richard O’Neill has distinguished himself as one of the great instrumentalists of his generation. GRAMMY Award winner for Best Classical Instrumental Solo Performance in 2021, O’Neill is only the second person to receive an award for a viola performance in the history of this category. Also an EMMY Award winner and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, O’Neill has appeared as soloist with the world’s top orchestras and conductors including Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nezet-Seguin. An Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Principal Violist of Camerata Pacifica, he also served as Artistic Director of DITTO, his South Korean chamber music project, for thirteen seasons, leading the ensemble on international tours to China and Japan and introducing tens of thousands to music. A Universal Music/Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, he has made 10 solo albums and many other chamber music recordings, earning multiple platinum discs. Composers Lera Auerbach, Elliott Carter, Paul Chihara, John Harbison, and Huang Ruo have written works for him. He serves as Goodwill Ambassador for the Korean Red Cross, The Special Olympics, UNICEF and OXFAM and serves on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West and is an Music Academy alumnus (‘98, ‘99).

Orin O’Brien was born in Hollywood to parents in the film industry, George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, and received her early musical training in Los Angeles, where she studied with Milton Kestenbaum and Herman Reinshagen. She then studied in New York with Frederick Zimmermann and graduated from The Juilliard School. She has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1966, where she has played with the world’s leading conductors. She has participated in numerous chamber music festivals, including Marlboro, and in first performances of the Gunther Schuller Quartet for Four Double Basses. She co-chaired the double bass department of The Juilliard School for ten years, and currently serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music. Her most recent chamber music performances were the quintets of Schubert and Dvorak with the Guarneri String Quartet.

Esteemed violist Cynthia Phelps’s wide-ranging career has taken her to stages across the world as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic for over two decades, she is a regularly featured soloist with the orchestra both at home and abroad, in a variety of repertoire, including two world premieres written solely for her. Other concerto appearances have been with the Minnesota Orchestra, Shanghai, Vermont, Santa Barbara, Eastern Music Festival, and San Diego Symphonies, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Rochester and Hong Kong Philharmonics.  Known for her emotional nuance, virtuosic technique, and plush tone, she is a founding member of both the New York Philharmonic String Quartet and Les Amies trio and is a frequent guest with chamber series across the globe. She has been featured in several nationwide "Live from Lincoln Center" telecasts, on National Public Radio, Radio France, Italy‘s RAI, and in regular broadcasts from the 92Y, including collaborations with Emanuel Ax and Daniil Trifonov. She is on the faculty of The Juilliard School Shanghai Academy, Music Academy of the West, and Mannes College of Music.

Ms. Phelps attended the Music Academy in 1979 and 1983, and was named a recipient of the Music Academy's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2001.

Anthony Plog has had a rich and varied international career in music—as a composer of operas, symphonic music, and chamber works; as an orchestral musician, soloist, and recording artist; and as a brass teacher and coach at some of the great music conservatories internationally and now online to students around the world.

As a composer, the music of Anthony Plog has been performed in over 30 countries, and he has been the recipient of numerous grants and commissions. After beginning his career writing extensively for brass, he now works in many different musical forms. He has composed three children’s operas, the first of which (How the Trumpet Got Its Toot) was premiered by the Utah Opera and Symphony. He completed a major tragic opera (Spirits) based on a Holocaust theme and recently finished a new opera about a drone operator suffering a nervous breakdown (The Sacrifice). Other new works include an oratorio about the first major environmental battle in the United States (God’s First Temples), in versions for orchestra, symphonic band, and soprano song cycle; and a cantata using the stories of women who have recovered from sex trafficking, prostitution, and drug abuse (Magdalene).

Anthony Plog began studying music at the age of 10, and by 19 he was playing extra trumpet with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductors such as Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Claudio Abbado. He has held positions with orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Malmo Symphony, and the Basel Symphony, and has performed on tour with the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Buenos Aires Symphony. As a soloist he has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan, and has numerous solo recordings to his credit.

Anthony Plog has taught at some of the greatest music institutions around the world, including the University of Southern California, the Music Academy of the West, and Indiana University (U.S.), as well as the Schola Cantorum (Basel, Switzerland), the Malmo Music Academy (Sweden), the Academia di Santa Cecilia (Rome, Italy), the Norwegian Music Academy, and the Freiburg Musik Hochschule (Germany). His experience teaching in a wide variety of musical cultures, in addition to his work as a composer and former player, allows him to approach teaching and coaching with a unique and fresh perspective. His Plog Program, published by Balquhidder Music, is a seven-volume method book that has been a valuable addition to trumpet methodology.

His new online teaching and coaching program is creating a new paradigm for international teaching. The program allows students worldwide to study with Anthony Plog and is available to players at all levels. Besides working individually with students on every brass instrument, he coaches chamber music groups, larger brass sections and ensembles, and wind ensembles, and he guides composers in writing for brass instruments.

Anthony Plog lives and works in Freiburg, Germany.

Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, pianist Paul Schenly has been a soloist with major United States orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic. He made two United States tours with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and toured with the same orchestra in Europe. He has appeared in many summer festivals, including repeated performances at the Hollywood Bowl, the Ravinia Festival, Blossom Music Center and the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Mr. Schenly appeared in the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, and in acclaimed recitals at Carnegie Hall. He has performed with many of the world's leading conductors including James Levine, Erich Leinsdorf, Christoph von Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Edo de Waart, Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Shaw and Aaron Copland, Michael Tilson Thomas and Kiril Kondrashin.

Born in Munich, Mr. Schenly lived in South America before coming to the U.S. at age five. Currently, he is the head of the Cleveland Institute of Music Piano Department and holds the Reinberger Chair in Piano. He earned a Master of Music degree from CIM, where he studied with Victor Babin.

Mr. Schenly has served on the juries of several national and international competitions and his students have won many national and international prizes. He is on the advisory board of the American Pianists Foundation and on the nominating committee for the Gilmore Piano Foundation. He has recorded for Sine Qua Non and RCA. Mr. Schenly is artistic director of the Cleveland International Piano Competition and is the founder/director of Pianofest in the Hamptons.

One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award's inception in 1974, Mr. Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.

Mr. Shifrin has appeared with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit and Denver symphonies among many others in the US, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Shifrin has also received critical acclaim as a recitalist, appearing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City as well as the the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. A sought after a chamber musician, he collaborates frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson String Quartets, Wynton Marsalis, and pianists Emanuel Ax and André Watts.

An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He has toured extensively throughout the US with CMSLC and appeared in several national television broadcasts on Live From Lincoln Center. He has also been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981.

David Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale's annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008.  He has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China's Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Mr. Shifrin's recordings on Delos, DGG, Angel/EMI, Arabesque, BMG, SONY, and CRI have consistently garnered praise and awards. He has received three Grammy nominations - for a collaborative recording with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of the collected chamber music of Claude Debussy (Delos), the Copland Clarinet Concerto (Angel/EMI) and Ravel's Introduction and Allegro with Nancy Allen, Ransom Wilson, and the Tokyo String Quartet (Angel/EMI).

His recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performed in its original version on a specially built basset clarinet, was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review.

His latest recording, Shifrin Plays Schifrin (Aleph Records), is a collection of clarinet works by composer/conductor Lalo Schifrin. Both the recording of the Copland Clarinet Concerto and a 2008 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott have been released on iTunes via Angel/EMI and Deutsche Grammophon.

Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

In addition to the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Music Academy of the West. At the outset of his career, he won the top prize at both the Munich and the Geneva International Competitions. Mr. Shifrin resides in Connecticut with his wife and is the father of four children - Henry, Olivia, Sam and William.

Donald Weilerstein has concertized extensively throughout the world as soloist and chamber musician. He studied at  the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian, Dorothy Delay, and members of the Juilliard String Quartet, and was honored at graduation by the National Foundation of the Arts as an outstanding graduate of the school. He was a member of the Young Concert Artists and a participant in the Marlboro Music Festival, performing on several Music from Marlboro Tours. In 1968, he won the Munich International Competition for violin and piano duo.

For twenty years (1969–1989) Weilerstein was the first violinist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet, with whom he toured the world. His recordings with the quartet can be heard on the RCA, Telarc, CBS, Phillips, and Pro Arte labels. These recordings have earned seven Grammy nominations and won Best of the Year awards from Time and Stereo Review.

Weilerstein has taught and performed at such major American and European music festivals as Caramoor, Tanglewood, Aspen, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Salzburg, Luzern, Verbier, Ishikawa, Keshet Eilon, "Chamber Music Encounters" sponsored by La Cite de la Musique and the Paris Conservatory and many more. He regularly teaches and performs at the Steans Institute in Ravinia, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, and at the Perlman Music Program.

He also performs as a duo recitalist with pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein. The Duo was enthusiastically received at Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and in the major American cities. Their discography includes the complete works of Ernest Bloch for violin and piano, and the Janacek, Dohnanyi, and Enescu Sonatas for Arabesque, as well as the complete Schumann Sonatas for Azica Records.

Weilerstein is a very active as a member of the highly acclaimed Weilerstein Trio which is in residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. Their CD for Koch records was released in January 2006 and features trios of Dvorak. They can be visited at weilersteintrio.com.

Recently featured in Strad, Weilerstein was formerly a professor of violin and chamber music at the Eastman School and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is currently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School. His students have been prize winners in major national and international competitions, including first prizes in the Indianapolis, Naumburg and Hanover competitions and 2nd prize in the Brussels competition. His students can be heard in many of today's leading orchestras and chamber ensembles.

Donald Weilerstein occupies a teaching chair endowed in 2004 by the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, with matching funds from the Nicholas Family Challenge.