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Biography
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James Campbell has followed his muse to five television specials, more than 40 recordings, over 30 works commissioned, a Juno Award for Stolen Gems [Marquis Records], a Roy Thomson Hall Award, Canada's Artist of the Year and the Order of Canada. Most recently, Campbell received The Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal. This was given on the occasion of the fiftieth Anniversary of the accession of Her Majesty the Queen to the Throne.
Called by the Toronto Star "Canada's pre-eminent clarinetist and wind soloist", James Campbell has performed in most of the world's major concert halls and with over 50 orchestras including the London Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Russian Philharmonic. During the 2003-2004 season he premiered Dreaming of the Masters, a jazz concerto by Allan Gilliland, commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony and written for James Campbell, with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops. Last fall, Gilliland arranged Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story for Campbell and premiered it with the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.
Campbell has collaborated and performed with many of the world's great musicians including the late Glenn Gould and Aaron Copland; as well as chamber music tours with over 30 string quartets including the legendary Amadeus String Quartet, the Guarneri, Vermeer, New Zealand, St Lawrence, Fine Arts, and Allegri String Quartets.
This year, Campbell will tour as soloist in Canada, the United States, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, New Zealand and Thailand. Collaborations include Mosaique, a chamber ensemble of 3 to 12 players (viola Rivka Golani, piano Richard Raymond, violin Moshe Hammer, and friends), and with New Zealand Quartet. In 2008 James Campbell will tour with ZAPP QUARTET of the Netherlands performing improvised, jazz, and contemporary music. Canadian composer Allan Gilliland composed Jazz Suite for the Clarinet and String Quartet premiered at Festival of the Sound in 2006, and American composer David Baker has been commissioned to compose a work for the Quintet to be premiered in 2008.
Of Campbell's extensive discography many have won international acclaim. Most recent releases include the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Allegri Quartet, voted "Top Choice" by BBC Radio 3, the world premiere recording of Brahms [orchestrated Berio Sonata Op. 120 No. 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra (both on Cala Records); and the Sony Classical re-release of the Debussy Premier Rhapsody with Glenn Gould.
Campbell is the subject of numerous features and cover stories in Clarinet Magazine (USA), Clarinet and Sax (UK), Piper Magazine (Japan), Gramophone, and in the book Clarinet Virtuosi of Today, by British author and clarinet authority Pamela Weston. In 1984, James Campbell was named Artistic Director of the annual summer chamber music festival in Parry Sound, ON, The Festival of the Sound now planning its 28th season. Mr. Campbell has taken the Festival to England on three occasions and it has been the subject of documentaries by BBC Television, CBC Television and TV Ontario. In 2003 Festival of the Sound opened its own 500 seat concert hall, the Charles W Stockey Festival Performance Hall.
Since 1989, James Campbell makes Bloomington, Indiana his base during the academic year as Professor of Music at the prestigious Music School of Indiana University.
January, 2007
James Campbell plays Conn-Selmer clarinets and uses Vandoren and Legere reeds
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