Clarinetist Gary Gray enjoys a versatile career as a concert artist, studio musician and professor of clarinet and chamber music at UCLA. He received his BM and MM degrees from Indiana University, where he studied clarinet with Robert McGinnis and chamber music with Janos Starker. The Los Angeles Times wrote of a recent concert, “Gray handled the clarinet solos with stunning ease and as mellow and gorgeous a sound as may be possible on his instrument”.

As a soloist, Gary’s concerto CD with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award, and his CD of clarinet/piano music recorded in London with Clifford Benson has also been a best-seller for Centaur Records.

His most recent recording for Centaur includes two Romantic masterworks for clarinet and chamber ensemble: the Brahms Quintet Op. 115 and Dohnanyi’s Sextet Op. 37. For this project Gary collaborated with the New Hollywood Quartet, pianist Robert Thies and LACO’s principal horn, Richard Todd.

Gary is a founding member and performer of Pacific Serenades and was a Faculty Artist at Chamber Music Northwest, the Aria Music Academy and the Aspen and Sedona Chamber music festivals. He has performed with the Cleveland, Angeles, Alexander, and New Hollywood quartets and has been a member of the St. Louis Symphony, the Aspen Festival and the Los Angeles Opera orchestras. His solo concerto performances have included those with the San Francisco and Indianapolis symphonies and LACO, among others.

His collaborations with composers include Aaron Copland, Malcolm Arnold, Pierre Boulez and Igor Stravinsky and he has recorded film music with John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Thomas Newman, Bruce Broughton and Don Davis, among many others.

Photo: Michael Miller