Clarinet Super Kids

We’ve designed a special class for third, fourth or fifth graders who want to join their future school band or play a woodwind instrument (flute, clarinet, or saxophone). A new session will begin January 2012. Instructor Les Nicholas is principal clarinetist of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

Highlights

• Weekly 50-minute classes on EMU campus
• $185 per 14-week semester

Students will use the Clarinéo, a new instrument especially for this age group.

About the instructor

Les Nicholas, principal clarinetist of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, has appeared as principal clarinetist in a variety of venues, such as Alice Tully Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Across Europe he has performed from Oslo to Palermo in opera, orchestra, chamber music and solo roles.

Les has been principal clarinetist of New York’s Classic Chamber Orchestra, the West Virginia Symphony, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Columbus, the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Central City Opera and the New York Harlem Opera (Europe). He has performed with Washington’s National Chamber Players, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Round Top Festival Institute, the Grand Teton and Coronado Music Festivals, the AIMS Festival in Austria and Italy, the Garth Newel Music Center, and the Wintergreen Festival where he was also director of the Performance Academy.

He has appeared in principal and solo roles for over two decades. He was a featured artist at The International Clarinet Association’s conference at Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and again as guest with the U.S. Naval Academy Band Quartet in a premiere dedicated to him for the 2002 University of Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium. Les may also be heard in solo roles supporting recording artist Richard Stoltzman on a 2009 CD of the music of Pulitzer Prize and multiple Grammy award-winning composer William Bolcom.