Esther Lamneck

Esther Lamneck, clarinetist, winner of the prestigious Pro Musicis Award, has appeared as soloist with major orchestras, with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, and with renowned artists including Isaac Stern. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe in featured appearances at the world's leading music festivals in Spoleto and Siena, Paris, Salzburg, Mexico City, and Newport. Ms. Lamneck is a well known chamber musician and has toured internationally with such groups as the Virtuosi Wind Quintet, the New American Trio, Saturn and the Contrasts Trio.

Ms. Lamneck maintains an active career as clarinet soloist and has given recent solo concerts in Boston's Jordan Hall, the Baird Auditorium at the Smithsonian, New York City's Gould Hall, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Villa Medici in Rome, the Bing Theater in Los Angeles and the Opera Comique in Paris.

Awarded the Naumburg Scholarship, Ms. Lamneck received her Doctorate, Masters and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Juilliard School of Music. She is currently director of Woodwind Studies in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. She is artistic director of the NYU New Music and Dance Ensemble, and also serves as director of NYU's Music and Dance Program in Florence, Italy where the ensemble is in residence during the Summer.

A versatile performer and an advocate of contemporary music, Ms. Lamneck is dedicated to expanding the traditional boundaries of music to create new art forms based on elements of jazz, folk and contemporary music idioms. She is one of few performers who plays the Hungarian Tárogató, a single reed woodwind instrument with a hauntingly beautiful sound. New compositions written for the instrument explore all the facets of new music performance from improvisation, electronics and interactive computer programs to works, which suggest the influence of Slavic and Hungarian folk music.

Ms. Lamneck has appeared on major television programs both here and abroad. She has recorded for numerous radio programs such as the ORTF in Paris and RAI in Rome. She has recorded for companies including Capstone, Capriccio Records, Centaur, CRI, EMF, Innova, Music and Arts, Opus One, Romeo/Qualiton and SEAMUS.