J. Lawrie Bloom

J. Lawrie Bloom was invited by Sir Georg Solti to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as Clarinet and Solo Bass Clarinet in 1980, the position he still holds today. Prior to that, he was a member of the Phoenix, Vancouver, Lyric Opera and Cincinnati orchestras. He has been a featured performer at the Ambler, Grand Teton, Ravinia, Skaneateles, and Spoleto festivals and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. Believing that chamber music is the most intimate and satisfying form of music making, he and cellist Marcy Rosen founded the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival in 1985 and helped create the International Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition in 2004; they continue as Artistic Co-Directors of both those events today. Bloom has toured the US, Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia with chamber groups and collaborated with members of the Chester String Quartets, Chicago Symphony, Rembrandt Chamber Players and Mendelssohn String Quartets. He has presented master classes all over the world. He is an artist performer for RICO International and a senior lecturer in clarinet at Northwestern University.