1. David Shifrin received early musical training at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1963.
16 Facts About David Shifrin
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David Shifrin attended the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in 1968 and later graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1971, where he studied with Anthony Gigliotti.
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In 1984, David Shifrin commissioned the construction of a special elongated clarinet, the basset clarinet, to enable the playing of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet in their original form.
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David Shifrin's 1985 recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and Quintet with Gerard Schwarz and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra was named "Record of the Year" by Stereo Review magazine.
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David Shifrin has received critical acclaim as a recitalist, performing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, as well as at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC A much sought after chamber musician, he has collaborated frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, and pianists Emanuel Ax and Andre Watts.
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An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004.
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David Shifrin has toured extensively throughout the United States with CMSLC and hosted and performed in several nationally televised broadcasts on PBS's Live from Lincoln Center.
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David Shifrin has been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981, and is the artistic director of the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival.
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David Shifrin has served as Principal Clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Honolulu Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the New York Chamber Symphony.
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David Shifrin joined the faculty of 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.
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David Shifrin has served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii.
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David Shifrin has been instrumental in broadening the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th- and 21st-century American composers including John Adams, Joan Tower, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
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David Shifrin was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize by Lincoln Center in 2000 for recognition of outstanding achievement and excellence in music, and today is one of only three wind players to have received the prize since its inception in 1974.
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David Shifrin is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2016 Concert Artists Guild Virtuoso Award.
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David Shifrin was given an Honorary Membership by the International Clarinet Society in 2014 in recognition of lifetime achievement, and at the outset of his career he won the top prize at both Munich's ARD International Music Competition and the Geneva International Music Competition.
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In 2019, David Shifrin received the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music.