Clarinetist Alan R. Kay was born in Rochester, N.Y. He is a member and former Artistic Director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a founding member of Windscape and Hexagon. He is principal clarinetist with Orpheus, the Riverside Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, Little Orchestra Society, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the American Symphony Orchestra.
He has played as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Da Camera of Houston, and Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. He has played as a soloist with Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Westfield Symphony, New York String Orchestra, Orpheus, Riverside Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, and N.Y. Chamber Ensemble, among others.
Kay has had fellowships at Juilliard and Tanglewood (C.D. Jackson Award). He is music director and conductor of the N.Y. Chamber Ensemble. His albums are available on the Arabesque, Bridge, Koch, Delos, and CRI labels and his arrangements for wind quintet and mixed ensemble are published by International Opus and Trevco. He has played solo premieres of Charles Wuorinen’s Synaxis, Paul Moravec’s Brandenburg Gate, and Panos Liaropoulos’s Monogram. He has served as a panelist for the Fischoff Competition, Young Concert Artists, and Concorso Internationale di Trapani. He was a recipient of the Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award in 2003. He has been a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music since 1996 and at Stony Brook University since 2008. Kay received his bachelor’s, master’s, and advanced certificate from The Juilliard School.
Kay studied clarinet with Leon Russianoff and Charles Neidich. He studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and Gustav Meier. Kay has been a faculty member since 1993 and a Pre-College faculty member since 1987.