Mark Friedman - Clarinet
Born and raised in New York City, clarinetist Mark Friedman studied at the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools of Music. Winner of a nation-wide competiton, during two consecutive summers he participated at the Young Artist Program at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, summer home of the Boston Symphony, where he performed under some of the world's greatest conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Colin Davis, Neville Mariner, George Solti and André Previn, among many others. Friedman was principal clarinet of the New York Youth Symphony for four years, culminating with a special performance of Aaron Copland's concerto for clarinet and orchestra under the baton of the composer at Carnegie Hall in 1980.
In 1981 Friedman came to Venezuela as a member of the Caracas Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been principal clarinet of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela (OSV), the oldest and most important of Venezuela's numerous symphony orchestras, since 1982. Since then, he has been an active soloist and chamber musician performing with a variety of different ensembles, one in particular being the Academic Wind Octet of Caracas (Octeto Académico de Caracas), in which he is the clarinet soloist as well as its international representative. With the Octeto, he has recorded seven cd's and participated in more than twenty international tours around Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the U.S.A.
Between 1992 and '93 Friedman created and directed the OSV Big Band and started his own Big Band Orchestra, which specializes in the interpretation of the original arrangements of the Big Bands of the 1930's and 40's.
As a clarinet soloist his opening recital inaugurated the first Clarinet Festival for young Venezuelan clarinetists back in 1987. He has premiered in Venezuela many of the most important concertos for clarinet and orchestra by such composers as Rossini, Bruch, Stravinsky, Jean Francaix, Leonard Bernstein as well as works by Venezuelan composers like Ricardo Lorenz Abreu, Jorge Castillo, Juan Carlos Núñez, Alfredo Rugeles, Eduardo Marturet, Aldemaro Romero, among others. As a teacher, he continues to teach clarinet and chamber music at the Instituto Universitario de Estudios Musicales (IUDEM), where he is a founding professor since 1985. In 1995 he was named Artistic Director of the first International Music Festival in El Morro-Lechería at Puerto La Cruz, where he was responsible for bringing together for the first time Eddie Daniels and Arturo Sandoval in two historic concerts. In 1998 Friedman was named as musical consultant as well as principal clarinetist of the new Municipal Orchestra of the City of Valencia. In December of 2000 he was elected as a board member and secretary of advertising and publicity of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela.
