John Bruce Yeh

John Bruce Yeh holds the post of assistant principal clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he has served longer than any other clarinetist in the ensemble’s history. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1957, he spent most of his childhood in Los Angeles, the son of Chinese immigrant scientists who pursued music as an avocation—his father as a vocalist and his mother as a pianist. After enrolling at the University of California, Los Angeles, he performed regularly with student chamber groups and served as principal clarinetist of the American Youth Symphony, receiving the university’s Frank Sinatra Musical Performance Award. In 1975 he transferred to the Juilliard School, supplementing his studies with summer sessions at the Aspen, Marlboro, and Tanglewood festivals. At nineteen, conductor Georg Solti invited him to join the Chicago Symphony as solo bass clarinetist in 1977. Two years later Yeh established the Chicago Pro Musica chamber ensemble, which he continues to direct; its inaugural recording, Stravinsky’s L’histoire du Soldat, earned the 1985 Grammy Award for Best New Classical Artist. Also in 1979 he advanced to assistant principal clarinetist and E-flat clarinetist, a role he maintained into the early 2020s. He received prizes at the Munich International Music Competition in 1982 and the Naumburg Clarinet Competition in 1985. His first solo album, Ebony Concerto, appeared on Reference Recordings in 1993 with the DePaul University Wind Ensemble and featured jazz-tinged concerted pieces by Stravinsky, Bernstein, Morton Gould, Victor Babin, and Artie Shaw. Beyond frequent solo engagements with the Chicago Symphony—among them the 1998 premiere of Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Concerto—Yeh has served as guest principal clarinet with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic. Between 2008 and 2011 he acted as the Chicago Symphony’s principal clarinetist. While at Juilliard he participated in the New York New Music Ensemble, an experience that sustained his commitment to contemporary repertoire; composers including Ralph Shapey have written works for him, and several of his Cedille Records releases emphasize recent music. In 2023 he issued Chicago Clarinet Classics on Cedille. His daughter Molly Yeh hosts the Food Network series Girl Meets Farm and performs as a percussionist.