Jana Starling

Canadian clarinetist Jana Starling is a nationally and internationally recognized performer-teacher. She is a regularly invited artist at the International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFest®, the International Music Camp (Peace Gardens), and across North America, South America and China. She is the co-founder and faculty member at the Lift Clarinet Academy, a summer clarinet program in Colorado, USA, and the founder of Canada’s national association, ClarinetCanada. She plays e-flat clarinet with Ironwood Trio, an ensemble dedicated to expanding and performing literature for the Eb/Bb/bass clarinet trio. Expanding her improvisation and knowledge of world music, she performs traditional folk and classical Arabic, Sephardic, and Greek Rembetika music with a local group, the Light of East Ensemble.

Starling is committed to commissioning and recording new music. She has collaborated with composers such as Eric Mandat, William O. Smith, James David, Roshanne Etezady, Jorge Montilla, Theresa Martin, David Biedenbender, Rodney Rogers, Glenn Hackbarth and Mark Wolfram. She has been involved in numerous collaborative recordings, including the debut CD “Destiny” (2019) by Ironwood Trio (Potenza Music label), with American composer, David Lipten (Ablaze Records label), and a full album of contemporary and commissioned duos with clarinet virtuoso, Robert Spring. Starling currently has 2 solo CD's, Mythos (2011) and Inflexion (2006), which contain premiere recordings of notable works. Reviewed in The Clarinet journal, Starling is hailed as “a wonderful player…musically sensitive …you will not be disappointed!”

She is an Associate Professor in the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University (Ontario, Canada) teaching undergraduate and graduate students. She previously held positions at Arizona State University (US), Mount Allison University (CAN) and visiting professor at Brandon University, (CAN). Starling received her BMus in music education from Brandon University (CAN, 1995) and her MMus and DMA in clarinet performance from Arizona State University (US, 1997 & 2005). Her teachers have been Ron Goddard, Connie Gitlin and Robert Spring. Starling is a Buffet-Crampon and Gonzalez Reed artist.