Historical
Piano Concerts Series
About
the Musicians
Chester Brezniak
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For more than three decades clarinetist Chester Brezniak
has performed extensively as an orchestral and chamber music player
throughout the United States. Presently principal clarinetist
with the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Brezniak served as
principal clarinet with the Orquestra Sinfonica de Sao Paulo, Brazil, was a member of the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, to name a few.
A founding member of the critically acclaimed Cambridge Chamber Players, the Atlanta Virtuosi, the Blackstone Trio, Soli Espri, Trio Capriccio,
and the Ariel Chamber Ensemble, Brezniak has appeared as guest artist
on the Fromm Foundation Series for Contemporary Music at Sanders
Theater, Harvard University; appeared with pianist Richard Goode in a
joint recital at the Frick Fine Arts Series at the University of
Pittsburgh; in the summer chamber series at St. Gaudens National
Historic Site; with the Muir and Vermeer String Quartets; with the
ensemble Alea III under Gunther Schuller and Theodore Antoniou; with
the Zamir Chorale of Boston under Joshua Jacobson; and with many other
groups. As a guest artist at the “Entrée des Artistes”
Series in Orliac, France, in 2008, and again in 2011 Brezniak
appeared with the Orliac Trio at Clark University, and at
St. Gaudens.
In March 2015, at Mechanics Hall, Worcester,
MA, he was guest artist with The Mastersingers of Worcester under
Malcolm Halliday in Gwyneth Walker’s “To Love This Earth”.
He
has also performed with the Boston Saengerfest Men’s Chorus and the
Andover Choral Society under Michael Driscoll. On February 4,
2014, he performed “Chester”, a solo work written for him by New
England Conservatory composer Lyle Davidson in The Arthur Berger
Memorial Concert in Jordan Hall, Boston, MA. As a duo Mr.
Brezniak and Mr. Halliday have performed recitals to critical acclaim
at the Frederick Historical Piano Collection Series in Ashburnham, MA.
Since the 1980s Mr. Brezniak has also participated in live performances
on WGBH-FM Radio, WNYC’s “The Listening Hour” and on Boston’s First
Night’s classical concert presentations. His recordings and
performances have been aired on NPR throughout the United States.
A
graduate of Bard College, B.A., Brezniak attained his M.M. at the New
England Conservatory of Music. During this period his primary
clarinet teachers included Gino Cioffi, Attilio Poto, Charles Russo,
and Harold Wright. Subsequently he participated in masterclasses with
Robert Marcellus and Stanley Drucker and chamber music study with
Rudolf Kolisch, Leon Fleischer, and Luis Garcia-Renart.
His
recordings include a Centaur Records release of Clarinet Now, and
Zemlinsky’s Trio in D Minor, Op.3 on Northeastern Records; and an Alea
111 performance of Gunther Schuller’s Duo Sonata incorporated into a short documentary film, The Past is in the Present: At Home with Gunther Schuller, July 2014.
He is clarinet instructor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clark University, and UMass/Boston.
We are pleased to welcome Chester Brezniak to his fifth appearance since 2007 in the Historical Piano Concert series.