David Shifrin

David Shifrin received early musical training at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1963. He attended the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in 1968 and later graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1971, where he studied with Anthony Gigliotti. Shifrin has appeared as a concerto soloist with many major orchestras around the world, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Hawaii Symphony and the Phoenix Symphony in the United States, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Shifrin commissioned and premiered a concerto by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Stephen Albert with the Philadelphia Orchestra during its 1991–1992 season, and in 1995 he premiered Ezra Laderman's Concerto for Clarinet and Strings with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. In 1984, Shifrin commissioned the construction of a special elongated clarinet, the basset clarinet, to enable the playing of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet in their original form.