Clarinetist
Performer — Collaborator
Biography
Michael Webster is Professor of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and Artistic Director of the Houston Youth Symphony, winner of first or second place in the American Prize and the Foundation for Music Education’s Mark of Excellence over 20 times since 2008. Described by the Boston Globe as “a virtuoso of burgeoning prominence,” he has collaborated with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Tokyo, Cleveland, Muir, Ying, Dover, Chester, and Artaria String Quartets and internationally-known artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, and many others. He has been associated with some of North America’s finest festivals, including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Chamber Music West and Northwest, Norfolk, Angel Fire, Steamboat Springs, Sitka, Park City, Skaneateles, Stratford (Ontario), Maui, La Musica di Asola, Victoria (BC), and Domaine Forget (Quebec). As a soloist he has appeared with many orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra with Aaron Copland and the Boston Pops with John Williams, and was for many years Aaron Copland’s favorite interpreter of his Clarinet Concerto.
Webster’s recital career began at Town Hall in 1968 with his eminent father, Beveridge Webster, as pianist. That same year he won Young Concert Artists’ International Competition and became Principal Clarinetist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held for twenty years. He has performed in all of New York City’s major halls, across the United States, and in Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Japan, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He has appeared as guest artist at the 92nd Street “Y”, and in Houston with Da Camera, Musiqa, and Context. High Fidelity/Musical America placed his CRI recording of American clarinet music on its Best Recordings list and Artists International selected him for its Distinguished Artist Award.
Webster has served as Acting Principal Clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony, Music Director of the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester, Founder and Music Director of Chamber Music Ann Arbor, and Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music, from which he earned three degrees. In 1988 he became a member of the conducting faculty at the New England Conservatory and taught clarinet both there and at Boston University. He has also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory, the Yale Summer School at Norfolk, Aria International Academy, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and the Johannesen International School of the Arts. He was Music Director of the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Conductor of the Asian Youth Orchestra under Yehudi Menuhin, and guest conducted several Boston-area orchestras until moving to Ann Arbor, where he was Adjunct Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan and Director of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra from 1993 to 1997.
In demand as a clinician, Webster has presented master classes at such institutions as the Manhattan School of Music, Florida State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Louisiana State University, the Puerto Rico Conservatory (San Juan), the University of Victoria (Wellington, New Zealand), Senzoku Gakuen (Tokyo, Japan), the University of Washington, the UMKC Conservatory of Music (Kansas City), the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He has also served as a coach for the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (in Brazil, Venezuela, Belgium, Mexico, Colombia, China, and the US), the National Youth Orchestra Festival (Sarasota) and at Banff for the International Festival of Youth Orchestras. He was the founding director of Clarinetopia, a residential seminar at Stony Brook and Michigan State Universities.
In 1988, he and his wife Leone Buyse founded the Webster Trio (flute, clarinet, and piano), represented on Crystal Records by Tour de France with Katherine Collier and World Wide Webster and American Webster with Robert Moeling. With Chizuko Sawa, the Webster Trio Japan has released Sonata Cho-Cho San on the Nami label and From Vienna to Budapest for Camerata. All of these discs feature Webster’s trio arrangements which, along with his original compositions, are published by Theodore Presser, International Music Company, Schott, and G. Schirmer. Webster also appears on the Albany, Arabesque, Beauport, Bridge, Centaur, and CRI labels. A dedicated teacher, since 1998 he has written a regular column entitled “Teaching Clarinet” for The Clarinet magazine, official journal of the International Clarinet Association. He has appeared frequently at ICA’s annual convention, ClarinetFest. Webster is a Buffet artist/clinician, playing Buffet clarinets exclusively.
Distinguished Collaborators
Listed below are some of the artists with whom I have had the pleasure of collaborating during my performance career.
Piano
Sara Davis Buechner
Myung-Whun Chung
David Deveau
Misha Dichter
Peter Frankl
David Golub
Richard Goode
Jeffrey Kahane
Joseph Kalichstein
Anton Nel
Ursula Oppens
Jon Kimura Parker
André-Michel Schub
Peter Serkin
Rudolf Serkin
Beveridge Webster
Violin
Joshua Bell
Andres Cardenes
Jennifer Frautschi
Felix Galimir
Sidney Harth
Mark Kaplan
Ida Kavafian
Ani Kavafian
Young Uck Kim
Benny Kim
Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin
Sergiu Luca
Robert Mann
Shlomo Mintz
György Pauk
Charles Treger
Kathleen Winkler
Viola
Atar Arad
James Dunham
Paul Hersh
Nobuko Imai
Kim Kashkashian
Martha Katz
Boris Kroyt
Paul Neubauer
Nokuthula Ngwenyama
Scott Nickrenz
Heichiro Ohyama
Samuel Rhodes
Yizhak Schotten
Marcus Thompson
Walter Trampler
Cello
Claus Adam
Colin Carr
Stephen Doane
Timothy Eddy
Norman Fischer
Bonnie Hampton
Lynn Harrell
Paul Katz
Laurence Lesser
Yo Yo Ma
Fritz Maag
Maureen McDermott
Sharon Robinson
Nicholas Rosen
Fred Sherry
Jeffrey Solow
String Quartet
Artaria
Chester
Cleveland
Dover
Muir
Tokyo
Ying
Winds
Leone Buyse
Loren Glickman
Stanley Hasty
Karl Leister
Robert Marcellus
Tara Helen O’Connor
Gervaise de Peyer
Paula Robison
Ronald Roseman
David Shifrin
Barry Tuckwell
Carol Wincenc
Voice
Betty Allen
Jan deGaetani
Maureen Forrester
Suzanne Mentzer
William Sharp
Lucy Shelton
Benita Valente
Discography
Solo and Chamber Music recordings.
Mozart (Arabesque Recordings Z6617) Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, KV 361, “Gran Partita” with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,
Michael Webster, basset horn, Gunther Schuller, conductor
Berlioz Les nuits d’été, Op. 7 and Mahler Five Rückert Songs (Bridge Recordings 9017, 1991 Grammy nominee)
Jan de Gaetani and the Eastman Chamber Ensemble, David Effron, conductor
Camerata 21 (Universidad Veracruzana) Round Top Trio for flute, clarinet and piano by Anthony Brandt
Arlene Zallman: Sei La Terra Che Aspetta (Bridge 9323) Nightsongs for soprano, flute and clarinet
Fleeting Visions - Collaboration II (Beauport BC1804) Sonatina Casada for flute and clarinet by Arthur Gottschalk
American Vistas (Albany Troy 1097) As It Fell Upon a Day for soprano, flute, and clarinet by Aaron Copland
Gathering the Lost Garden (Acis APL14471) Gathering the Lost Garden for mezzo soprano, clarinet and bass clarinet, and piano by David Ashley White
Rivier Revisited (Crystal Records 319) Duo for flute and clarinet and “Capriccio” for woodwind quintet by Jean Rivier.
American Contemporary Music for Clarinet and Piano (CRI LP 374) Works of Donald Martino, Verne Reynolds, Louise Talma, and Michael Webster
As principal clarinetist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, David Zinman, conductor
Amram: Triple Concerto for Woodwind, Brass, Jazz Quintets and Orchestra; Elegy (RCA Red Seal)
Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus (Vox Turnabout); Romances (Elektra/Nonesuch)
Dvorak: American Suite; Legends; Suite in A, Op. 98b (Elektra Nonesuch)
Gutché: Icarus (Vox Turnabout)
Janacek: Lachian Dances (Elektra/Nonesuch)
Mendelssohn: Scottish Symphony, Hebrides Overture (Vox Cum Laude)
Spohr: Violin Concerto #8 (Elektra/Nonesuch)
As principal clarinetist of the Rochester Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor
Ties and Tails (Ellington and Gershwin)
Syncopated Clock (Anderson)
An Enchanted Evening
Uptown/Downtown
The Best of Broadway
As principal basset horn with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, conductor
Strauss: Elektra (Philips)