David Shifrin received early musical training at the
Interlochen Arts Academy in 1963. He 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. Shifrin has appeared as a
concerto soloist with many major
orchestras around the world, including the
Philadelphia Orchestra,
Minnesota Orchestra,
Dallas Symphony Orchestra,
Seattle Symphony,
Houston Symphony,
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra,
Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra,
Hawaii Symphony and the
Phoenix Symphony in the United States, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Shifrin commissioned and premiered a concerto by
Pulitzer Prize winning composer
Stephen Albert with the Philadelphia Orchestra during its 1991–1992 season, and in 1995 he premiered
Ezra Laderman's Concerto for Clarinet and Strings with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. In 1984, 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. 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. Shifrin has also 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, D.C. 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
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 United States with CMSLC and hosted and performed in several nationally televised broadcasts on
PBS’s
Live from Lincoln Center. He has been the artistic director of
Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981, and is also the artistic director of the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival. Shifrin has served as Principal Clarinetist with the
Cleveland Orchestra,
American Symphony Orchestra (under the direction of
Leopold Stokowski),
Honolulu Symphony,
Dallas Symphony Orchestra,
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the
New York Chamber Symphony. 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. 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 of Music in Beijing. 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. In 2020, he premiered a new clarinet concerto that he commissioned from
David Ludwig at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland. at the
University of Maine, 2022 ==Awards==