John Bruce Yeh, Clarinet

Biography

The son of music-loving scientists in Los
Angeles, John Bruce Yeh defines himself as a musical explorer. He pursued
pre-medical studies at UCLA, where he won the Frank Sinatra Musical Performance
Award and performed as Principal Clarinetist of the American Youth Symphony
under Mehli Mehta. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in 1975 and also
studied at Aspen, Marlboro, and Tanglewood. In 1977, when Yeh was 19, Sir Georg
Solti invited him to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as solo Bass
Clarinetist. Two years later, Yeh became Assistant Principal Clarinetist of the
orchestra, a post in which he continues to serve. He has performed concertos by
Stravinsky, Nielsen, and Elliott Carter with the Chicago Symphony and has
soloed with other orchestras in locations around the world including at the
National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan and in the Great Philharmonic Hall in
Saint Petersburg, Russia. Yeh also appears as a guest artist on chamber music
series and at music festivals around the world. His many solo and chamber music
recordings have earned wide critical acclaim. Constantly striving to find new
types of expression in music, Yeh organized the Chicago Pro Musica in 1979,
which won a Grammy award as Best New Classical Artist in 1986. Recently, Yeh
co-founded the visual-musical quartet, InVenTionS, together with clarinetist
Teresa Reilly and mime artists T. Daniel and Laurie Willets.