Featured Bass Clarinet Pedagogue 

The 2021 Bass Clarinet Master Course features retired Chicago Symphony Orchestra bass clarinetist and Senior Lecturer at Northwestern University: J. LAWRIE BLOOM

 

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J. Lawrie Bloom Bio

 

 

A versatile player, J. Lawrie Bloom has been heard in chamber, orchestral and concerto appearances on soprano clarinet, basset clarinet and bass clarinet. He began studying piano at four and switched to the clarinet at nine. He continued studies at the Columbus Boychoir School, with whom he toured the U.S., Canada and Japan, singing and playing the clarinet.

At that same time on clarinet he came under the guidance of Roger W. McKinney, later studying with Anthony M. Gigliotti. Lawrie is a founding member of the Civitas Ensemble in Chicago, with whom he plays clarinet, and acts as an Artistic Co-Director. He continues as clarinetist and Artistic Co-Director with the Chesapeake Music Festival. He has been a featured performer at many International Clarinet Association conferences, the Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, and taught and performed at the 6th Annual Clarinet Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Lawrie has performed at the Ambler, Grand Teton, Ravinia, Skaneateles and Spoleto festivals, and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. Lawrie toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has collaborated with the Chester, Chicago Symphony, and Mendelssohn String Quartets, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and members of the Ridge, Orion and Vermeer string quartets.

He has been heard many times in live concerts over the airwaves of WFMT in Chicago, and in live recital for the Australian Broadcast Company. In September of 1980 Sir Georg Solti invited Lawrie to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in the position of Clarinet and Solo Bass Clarinet. In that position he has toured the world, with some 2 dozen trips to Europe, 5 times to Asia, and appearances in Australia, and India to date. He can be heard on CSO recordings of a vast repertoire. Previous to joining the CSO Lawrie held similar appointments with the Phoenix Symphony, the orchestra of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Vancouver Symphony, and the Cincinnati Symphony. Lawrie is a Senior Lecturer in Clarinet at Northwestern University. He has presented master classes all over the world, and is an Artist Performer for Buffet Crampon USA and D'Addario Woodwinds, as a Reed Design Consultant.