“If there is a bel canto school of clarinet playing, Shifrin is surely its finest exponent.”

-Los Angeles Times

Winner of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.

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Zwilich Clarinet Concerto Added to National Recording Registry

April 12, 2023

David Shifrin’s recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra with Chamber Music Northwest was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." From the Library of Congress:

Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich had already written the first movement of this work when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 took place. Clarinetist David Shifrin leads the Chamber Music Northwest Chamber Orchestra on this live recording made in Portland, Oregon, in 2004. He and several members of the ensemble had performed its premiere a year earlier, and their feeling for it comes through in the buoyancy of the first movement, suggesting the hustle and bustle of a normal working day in New York City, and in the violence, anger and sorrow of the rest of the day expressed in the subsequent movements. The 2012 CD release of this performance, and its enduring impact and reputation, are singular for a 21st century classical recording.