Gregory Barrett

Gregory Barrett is Professor of Clarinet at Northern Illinois University. He has performed and taught throughout the U.S. and Europe, and in Australia, Canada, China, Israel and Japan. With the Lahti (Finland) Sinfonia Chamber Ensemble he performed in Vienna’s Musikverein. Barrett is a specialist in music from Finland, his recordings The Finnish Clarinet and Eliangelis are available on the ALBA label. Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen has approved his chamber ensemble arrangement of Salonen’s Nachtlieder.

Barrett takes special pride in the achievements of his students who have performed in groups such as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and who have gone on to advanced or doctoral study at the Curtis Institute of Music, the University of Iowa, the University of Kansas, University of Missouri – Kansas City, and Yale University.

Breitkopf & Härtel has published his arrangement of Jean Sibelius’s En Saga Septet; Billaudot Éditeur his 24 Clarinet Etudes from the World, Weimar Klezmer Trio, The Three Shepherds Rock (with apologies to Franz Schubert), and soon his 10 études préliminaires sur la Première Rhapsodie de Debussy; Edition Wilhelm Hansen offers his arrangement for clarinet and piano of Carl Nielsen’s Chaconne, Op. 32 and OR-TAV Music Publications distributes his Klezmer Suite for clarinet choir and Oyfbli & Oyf tish un oyf benk (Flowering & It was a Grand Old Time) for solo clarinet with wind band.

Barrett’s degrees are from Northwestern University (B.M.), SUNY-Buffalo (M.F.A.) and Indiana University (D.M.) where his primary teachers were Clark Brody, James Pyne, and James Campbell.