George Silfies

Born and educated on the East Coast, George Silfies has been Principal Clarinet of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra since 1970. Prior to his appointment with the SLSO, he held principal positions with the U.S. Navy Band, the Baltimore Symphony, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra, and the opera companies of New York City and Santa Fe. He also served for seven years as Assistant Principal Clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra, where he played under the direction of legendary conductor George Szell.

As a soloist, Mr. Silfies has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. With the SLSO, he has been featured in the concertos of Mozart, Weber, Nielsen, and Copland, among others. In 1986 he gave the world-premiere performance of Dominick Argento's Capriccio: Rossini in Paris for Clarinet and Orchestra, a work commissioned by the SLSO and written expressly for Mr. Silfies. An accomplished pianist as well, Mr. Silfies has accompanied and collaborated with such artists as Pablo Casals, Robert Shaw, Alexander Schneider, Richard Lewis, and Claudine Carlson.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Mr. Silfies had served on the faculties of the Peabody Conservatory, Michigan State University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Queens College in New York. Most recently, he taught at the St. Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts (now the Saint Louis Symphony Community Music School), where he was the Artistic Director of the Artists Diploma Program.

George Silfies