Delaware Clarinet Day

The 5th annual Delaware Clarinet Day is scheduled for Saturday, April 22, 2018, and features Jeremy Reynolds, Michelle Kiec, Kate Young and Wesley Rice, along with UD's own Christopher Nichols, Julie Nishimura and the Clarinet Ensemble.

Activities for the day will include concerts, master classes, exhibits and performing activities.

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Delaware Clarinet Day 2018 Schedule

All events in Puglisi Orchestra Hall unless otherwise indicated
8:30 a.m. – Welcome and Opening Performance by UD Clarinet Ensemble
8:45 a.m. - Michelle Kiec Clinic – Yoga for Clarinetists
9:45 a.m. Festival Choir Rehearsal
10:30 a.m. Wesley Rice Clinic – Instrument Maintenance
11:30 a.m. Lunch (Center for the Arts Lobby)
12:30 p.m. Jeremy Reynolds Recital and Master Class (Gore Recital Hall)
2:45 p.m. Festival Choir Rehearsal
3:30 p.m. Kate Young Clinic
5:00 p.m. Closing Festival Choir Concert/Reception

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​Internationally renowned artist Jeremy Reynolds has performed on six continents, making his Carnegie Hall debut in 2015. He joined the faculty of the University of Denver Lamont School of Music after performing as principal clarinetist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he currently holds the position of associate principal clarinet with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestra. He has performed for the International Clarinet Association’s ClarFest, Clarimania (Poland), ClariBogota (Colombia), Australian Clarinet and Saxophone Festival, One Month Festival (South Korea), International Alliance for Women in Music, University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, International Double Reed Society and the National Flute Association. He has performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival, Des Moines Metro Opera, Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra, New World Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute and the Aspen Music Festival. Reynolds has won awards at the Coleman and Carmel National Chamber Music Competitions additionally collaborating with Itzhak Perlman, Don Weilerstein, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Stefan Milenkovich and Merry Peckham. He has been invited to teach in some of the world’s most renowned music conservatories including the Versailles Conservatory of Music, Seoul National University, Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Spain, as well as Soochow University and Tainan University of the Arts in Taiwan. Reynolds is a Buffet Group Performing Artist/Clinician and Lomax Classic Mouthpiece Performing Artist.

​Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Kutztown University Michelle Kiec merges a career as an administrator with performances as a clarinetist. Dr. Kiec is a frequent conference presenter in the areas of leadership, curriculum development, enrollment management, student success, assessment and faculty development. She has performed with the Harrisburg Symphony, Harrisburg Opera, West Virginia Symphony, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Opera Lancaster, National Repertory Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and Breckenridge Music Festival, as well as in many chamber ensembles and solo recitals. She earned master’s and doctoral degrees in clarinet performance at Peabody Conservatory of Music of The Johns Hopkins University. She holds bachelor's degrees in saxophone performance and German from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

​Wesley Rice is the owner and founder of Rice Clarinet Works – a company that specializes in clarinet repair and restoration, as well as the manufacture of various clarinet-related products. A clarinet player himself, Wesley has used his performance background to bring more than 1000 clarinets to artist-level playability over his career. After working with a renowned machinist for a short period, Wesley was able to take the knowledge he had gained and pursue manufacturing and design. Through the acquisition of many pieces of equipment – both computer controlled and manually operated, he has been able to manufacture almost every part of the clarinet. Over the past several years, Wesley has been producing custom lines of products such as CNC-manufactured mouthpieces, barrels, bells, ligatures, tuning rings, and even a reed machine for some of the biggest names in the clarinet-product industry.

Kate Young is a clarinetist from upstate New York who is now based in Philadelphia, PA. She currently serves as the instructor of clarinet and saxophone for the St. Andrew's School in Middletown, DE and clarinet professor at the Nelly Berman School of Music in Ardmore, PA. Previous to these posts, Dr. Young performed and taught throughout Louisiana. She served as the professor of clarinet and saxophone at the Louisiana College in Pineville, LA, maintained a large private studio, and performed as a Bass, Eb, and soprano clarinetist with the Baton Rouge Symphony, Acadiana Symphony and Opera Lousiane company.

Dr. Young's research interests combine her experience in Cognitive Science, Kinesiology, and Music. Through a collaboration with the Kinesiology department at LSU, her dissertation used electromyography (EMG) to record how muscles activity changed as the thumb-rest position is changed. This research won the First Prize during the International Clarinet Association Madrid 2015 ClarinetFest, and has been published in the Clarinet Magazine and Performing Arts Medical Association Journal. She earned her Master of Music (2011) and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees (December, 2014) from the Louisiana State University. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Brain and Cognitive Science from the University of Rochester (2009).

Christopher Nichols joined the faculty of the University of Delaware as assistant professor of clarinet in 2013 where he instructs undergraduate and graduate applied clarinet, clarinet ensemble, chamber music, pedagogy and literature, and annually hosts Delaware Clarinet Day. As an artist clinician, Dr. Nichols has recently appeared at Rutgers University, the Crane School of Music at SUNY-Potsdam, the University of Maryland and the University of Southern Mississippi. Dedicated to the cultivation of clarinetists of all ages, Dr. Nichols has served on the faculty of the Delaware Governor’s School of Excellence and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, and maintains a private studio. Dr. Nichols’ students have found success in competitions, won positions in military bands and serve as music educators.

As a Légère Reeds Endorsing Artist and a Buffet Artist Clinician, Dr. Nichols performs exclusively on Légère Signature Series reeds and Buffet clarinets. Additional information is available at his website.

​Pianist Julie Nishimura celebrates 25 years as faculty accompanist for the Department of Music at the University of Delaware, having performed more than 380 collaborative recitals and 45 opera and scene-study performances with the Opera Workshop and Opera Theatre. As secondary faculty, she teaches Sight-Reading at the Keyboard and Accompanying/Chamber Music.

 A much sought-after collaborative artist, Ms. Nishimura has performed in the chamber music series of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theatre and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra at the Hotel DuPont, and she has been a guest artist at more than 35 college campuses. Ms. Nishimura is a perennial favorite at the Delaware Chamber Music Festival and California Summer Music.