He was a clarinet player, author and teacher born in Denver, Colorado, who studied at the University of Colorado and the Eastman School of Music and with various highly acclaimed teachers.
As a regular soloist and recitalist he appeared with many orchestras and ensembles including the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oklahoma Woodwind Quintet . He appeared at Carnegie Hall, two conferences of the National Association for Musical Education, the Eisenstadt Festival in Austria and many other European Conferences and Festivals.
As a teacher he was a clarinet instructor at the State University of Arts and Sciences in New York for eight years before joining the faculty of the University of Oklahoma as the David Ross Boyd Professor of Music. He also held many masterclasses and served as a clinician for many state music conventions, was on the artist faculties of the Hungarian Clarinet Camp and Red Lodge Music Festival, and lectured at the International Clarinet Society Conference in 1988 where he performed with the once member of the Oklahoma Woodwind Quintet , Jozsef Balogh .
He founded the OU Clarinet Symposium in the 1970s and was twice Vice-President of the International Clarinet Society.
As an author he wrote articles for the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, several magazines and his book Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto: The Clarinetists’s View.
Recognised for his contribution to musical education he was awarded the OU Regent’s Award for Superior Teaching and the Amoco Foundation Award for Good Teaching.
He passed away in Norman, Oklahoma, in 2010 when he was 67 years old.
Oklahoma Woodwind Quintet recordings
Angels We Have Heard on High (Traditional French/James Chadwick/Edward Barnes )
Integra IMCD 801 (CD: A Christmas Delight)
Here he is giving a lesson on Embouchre for clarinet students…
Sources:
- http://music.ou.edu/inline/Faculty/Woodwinds/etheridge.html
- http://www.buffet-crampon.com/en/artists.php?mode=artistPresentation&aid=512
- http://www.mcm.edu/~josenhat/clday05results.htm
- http://web.mac.com/crath/iWeb/CRSite/OK%20WW%205tet.html
- http://www.clarinet.org/about/history.asp
- http://obituaries.normantranscript.com/story/david-etheridge-1942-2010-744991232