Jon Manasse

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BIOGRAPHY

Among the most distinguished classical artists of his generation, clarinetist Jon Manassee is internationally recognized for his inspiring artistry, uniquely glorious sound and charismatic performing style.

Recent season highlights include return performances with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and debuts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, The Chappaqua Orchestra, Montana’s Missoula Symphony Orchestra and Oregon’s Rogue Valley Symphony. With pianist Jon Nakamatsu, he continues to tour throughout the United States as half of the acclaimed Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. The Duo’s activities include the world premiere performances of Paquito D’Rivera’s The Cape Cod Concerto with Symphony Silicon Valley, conducted by Leslie B. Dunner.

Jon Manasse’s solo appearances include New York City performances at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Hunter College’s Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse, Columbia University, Rockefeller University and The Town Hall, fourteen tours of Japan and Southeast Asia – all with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, debuts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Osaka and concerto performances with Gerard Schwarz and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, both at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and at the prestigious Tokyu Bunkamura Festival in Tokyo. With orchestra, he has been guest soloist with many U.S. orchestras including the symphonies of Seattle, Indianapolis, Richmond, Pensacola, Florida West Coast, and others. Of special distinction was Mr. Manasse’s 2002 London debut in a Barbican Centre performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with Gerard Schwarz and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Jon Manasse has been the guest soloist with many of the leading chamber ensembles of the day, including The Amadeus Trio and Germany’s Trio Parnassus and the American, Borromeo, Colorado, Lark, Manhattan, Moscow, Orion, Rossetti, Shanghai, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets, and has collaborated with violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jon Nakamatsu. Manasse is principal clarinetist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In 2008 he was appointed principal clarinetist and Ensemble Member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City. As one of the nation’s most highly sought-after wind players, has also served as guest principal clarinetist of the New York Pops Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New Jersey, Saint Louis and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, under the batons of Gerard Schwarz, Zdenek Macal, Jerzy Semkow, Robert Craft and Hugh Wolff. For several seasons, he was also the principal clarinetist of the New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Manasse has been a guest clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic in concerts conducted by Valery Gergiev and André Previn, and he has served as the principal clarinetist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performing under the batons of Artistic Director James Levine and, among others, Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski.

In addition to the premiere performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Clarinet Concerto, which was commissioned for him, Jon Manasse has also presented the world premieres of James Cohn’s Concerto for Clarinet & String Orchestra at the international ClarinetFest ’97 at Texas Tech University and, in 2005, of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with the National Philharmonic.

Jon Manasse has six critically acclaimed CDS on the XLNT label: the complete clarinet concerti of Weber, with Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra; the complete works for clarinet and piano of Weber, with pianist Samuel Sanders; recording premieres of 20th Century clarinet works; “Clarinet Music from 3 Centuries,” including Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (with the Shanghai Quartet), as well as music by Spohr, Gershwin and James Cohn; James Cohn’sClarinet Concerto #2; and the concerti of Mozart, Nielsen and Copland, with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Also available are his recordings of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with Vladimir Lande and the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony on the Arabesque label and Lowell Liebermann’s Quintet for Clarinet, Piano and String Trio on KOCH International. His debut CD with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, a harmonia mundi album of the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, was released to international rave reviews, early in 2008. 2010 saw the release of concerti by Mozart and Spohr with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, also on the harmonia mundi label.

Jon Manasse is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with David Weber. Mr. Manasse was a top prize winner in the Thirty-Sixth International Competition for Clarinet in Munich and the youngest winner of the International Clarinet Society Competition. Currently, he is an official “Performing Artist” of both the Buffet Crampon Company and Vandoren, the Parisian firms that are the world’s oldest and most distinguished clarinet maker and reed maker, respectively. Since 1995, he has been Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music; in the fall of 2007 Mr. Manasse joined the faculty of his alma mater, The Juilliard School.

Jon Manasse and his Duo partner, the acclaimed pianist Jon Nakamatsu, serve as Artistic Directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, an appointment announced during summer 2006.

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