Michele Zukovsky

Michele Zukovsky is an American clarinetist and longest serving member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, serving from 1961 at the age of 18 until her retirement on December 20, 2015^[1][2]

Zukovsky is the principal clarinetist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has performed with the Boston Pops, the St. Petersburg String Quartet, the Lincoln Center Chamber Players, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival.^[3] She taught at the California Institute of the Arts. She currently teaches clarinet at the University of Southern California.^[3]

She premiered John Williams' Clarinet Concerto with the Boston Pops in 1991.^[4] In 1986, she premiered a version by Luciano Berio of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 #1, by Johannes Brahms, arranged for clarinet and orchestra under commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

She is on the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California and the Pasadena Conservatory of Music.^[5]

Family

Born in Los Angeles, she played alongside and later succeeded her father, Kalman Bloch, as the principal clarinetist of the L.A. Philharmonic. She is related through her mother Frances to famed violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz. Her deceased brother Greg Bloch played violin and mandolin for the Italian rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), the American progressive-rock bands String Cheese and It's a Beautiful Day, on "Gilda LIve" on Broadway, and with G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Orchestra in 1980.

References