John Bruce Yeh joined the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra in 1977, appointed solo bass clarinet of
the Orchestra at the age of nineteen by Sir Georg
Solti. Two years later, he was named assistant
principal and solo E-flat clarinet. He currently
serves as acting principal clarinet. Recently he has
performed as guest principal clarinet of the
Philadelphia Orchestra as well as of the Seoul
Philharmonic in Korea.
Yeh has performed concertos with the CSO on several
occasions, including the 1998 American premiere of
Elliott Carter�s Clarinet Concerto with Pierre
Boulez conducting and the 1993 performance of Carl
Nielsen�s Clarinet Concerto with Neeme J�rvi. A
concert recording of the Nielsen was released on the
CSO CD set Soloists of the Orchestra II: From the
Archives, vol. 15. In 2004, Yeh was featured in
Leonard Bernstein�s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
in collaboration with the Hubbard Street Dance
Company and the CSO conducted by David Robertson.
A prizewinner at both the 1982 Munich International
Music Competition and the 1985 Naumburg Clarinet
Competition in New York, Yeh continues to solo with
orchestras around the globe. His more than a dozen
solo and chamber music recordings have earned
worldwide critical acclaim. Scheduled for future
release by Naxos Records is a disc of single and
double concertos with clarinet and symphonic wind
ensemble by McAllister, Burritt, J.M. David, and
Daugherty, featuring John, his wife Teresa, his
daughter Molly, and the Columbus State University
Wind Ensemble conducted by Robert Rumbelow.
Yeh is director of Chicago Pro Musica, which
received the Grammy Award in 1986 for Best New
Classical Artist. He frequently appears at festivals
and on chamber music series worldwide, and he has
performed several times with Music from Marlboro;
the Guarneri, Ying, Colorado, Pacifica, and Avalon
string quartets; as well as the Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center.
With his wife, clarinetist Teresa Reilly, erhu
virtuoso Wang Guowei, and pipa virtuoso Yang Wei,
Yeh recently formed Birds and Phoenix an innovative
quartet dedicated to musical exploration by bridging
Eastern and Western musical cultures. In their debut
performance in September 2006, the group performed
works by Victoria Bond, Pamela Chen, Lu Pei, and
Bright Sheng, all commissioned for them by Fontana
Chamber Arts in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Passionately committed to music education, Yeh
served for twenty-six years on the faculty of DePaul
University�s School of Music, and he joined the
faculty at Roosevelt University�s Chicago College
for the Performing Arts in 2004. He has taught
master classes at many universities and
conservatories including the Juilliard, Eastman and
Manhattan Schools of Music, the Cleveland Institute
of Music, Northwestern University, and the
University of Michigan. In addition, he is on the
faculty of Midwest Young Artists in Fort Sheridan,
Illinois.
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Los Angeles,
John Bruce Yeh pursued premedical studies at UCLA,
where he also won the Frank Sinatra Musical
Performance Award. He entered the Juilliard School
in 1975 and attended music schools in Aspen,
Marlboro, and Tanglewood. He cites Harold Wright,
Ray Still, Marcel Moyse, Allan Dennis, and Mehli
Mehta as influential mentors.