Marianne Gythfeldt, a native of Norway, has distinguished herself as an adventurous performer and teacher of clarinet. She earned the position of Assistant Professor of Clarinet at the University of Delaware after fifteen years of professional life in New York City's finest chamber ensembles, orchestras, and educational institutions. Early clarinet studies began in the Oslo community bands, and continued in the All-State bands and orchestras of New Jersey. Ms. Gythfeldt graduated from the Eastman School of Music and SUNY at Stony Brook with the Bachelor and Masters degrees, as a student of Stanley Hasty and Charles Neidich, and worked with electro-acoustic composers as a Doctoral student at IRCAM in Paris.

Marianne Gythfeldt's musical life includes all aspects of clarinet performance. She has become known as a diverse and flexible musician, equally at-home in traditional, contemporary and alternative/cross-over genres. She is the clarinetist of Zephyros Winds and Del'Arte Woodwind Quintet, and performs with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Critics have noted her exceptional ability with contemporary technique, and as a clarinetist who sings through the instrument.

Recent performances have included a solo appearance at the 2005 Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, a tour to Europe with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and multi-media productions of Frank Zappa and Paquito D'Rivera's music at the Bergen Festival in Norway and Bremen Festival in Germany. Marianne appears in concert at summer festivals across the country, including Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, June in Buffalo, Cooperstown Music Festival, and Skaneateles festival in New York State, and has made several appearances at the Mt. Desert Island Chamber Music Festival in Maine. Ms. Gythfeldt is also on the faculty of the Chamber Music Festival and Composer's Forum of the East, which takes place at Bennington College every summer.

Ms. Gythfeldt can be heard on recordings by CBS Masterworks, CRI, Albany, and Koch. She recorded two solo clarinet pieces by Robert Morris, on Albany Records, which was released in 2005. In addition to performing and teaching, Ms. Gythfeldt raises money through grant-writing for special projects. The Koch recording of Feldman's works, performed by New Millennium Ensemble was one such project, and she is currently working on a project with Zephyros Winds to record the unrecorded chamber pieces of Wolfgang Rihm.