A native of Los Angeles, Grammy Award-winning clarinetist John Bruce Yeh has been a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1977. Having joined the orchestra at the age of 19 as Solo Bass Clarinetist, he was appointed Assistant Principal and Solo E-flat Clarinet two years later by Sir Georg Solti. The son of music-loving scientists, John pursued pre-medical studies at UCLA prior to entering the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1975. He was a 1976 Fromm Fellow at Tanglewood, where he studied with Harold Wright of the Boston Symphony, and received the Benjamin H. Delson Memorial Award as Outstanding Instrumentalist. His other teachers include Joseph Allard, Gordon Herritt, Gary Gray, Michele Zukovsky, Robert Marcellus, Ray Still, Mehli Mehta, and Marcel Moyse. Director of the Grammy Award-winning chamber ensemble Chicago Pro Musica, which he organized in 1979, and a founding member of the Chicago Symphony Winds, Mr. Yeh frequently performs at festivals and on chamber music series worldwide. Being fluent in Russian, John found a 1990 tour to the then-Soviet Union particularly meaningful, especially the thunderous ovation and "sea of flowers" that greeted members of Chicago Pro Musica when they played Mozart, Schubert, and Carter to a capacity audience in Leningrad. Mr. Yeh has also performed several times with the Guarneri String Quartet, The Ying Quartet, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Alexander Schneider & Friends. He toured with "Music from Marlboro" in 1981, and with the Chicago Symphony Chamber Ensemble in 1989. A prizewinner at both the 1982 Munich International Music Competition, and the 1985 Naumburg Clarinet Competition in New York, he continues to perform as soloist with orchestras in America and Europe. In October of 1993, Mr. Yeh was the acclaimed soloist with the CSO and Neeme Jarvi in five performances of Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto and in December of 1989, performed Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto with the CSO and Leonard Slatkin. John Bruce Yeh's recording of the Carl Nielsen Clarinet Concerto with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra was released by Centaur Records in 1987, and his recording of the Prokofiev Clarinet Concerto (transcription and orchestration of the Opus 94 Flute Sonata by Kent Kennan) was released in 1993 on the same label. An enthusiastic champion of new music, John has premiered and recorded several works of Chicago composers. The first installment is represented on the critically acclaimed disc "The Clarinet in My Mind" with Chicago Pro Musica on the Newport Classic label. Recent releases include "Ebony Concerto," a disc from Reference Recordings featuring John and the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble in music by Stravinsky, Bernstein, Morton Gould, Victor Babin, and Artie Shaw. Also available are concert performances of the Brahms Trio and Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time with Andrea Swan, Marc Johnson, and Martin Beaver, issued by Naim Audio on two discs titled "Concerts Under the Dome." Upcoming in 1995 is a disc from Koch International Classics titled "Dialogues With My Shadow," music for clarinet and computer by Boulez, Martino, Robert Carl, Rami Levin, and Howard Sandroff. His playing is also featured on three albums of chamber music with the Chicago Pro Musica for Reference Recordings, as well as on the Mozart Music for Basset Horns album released by CBS Masterworks and nominated for a Grammy Award in 1986. As a member of Chicago Pro Musica, Mr. Yeh was honored with the Grammy in 1986 for "Best New Classical Artist" from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This has been the only time in the history of The Recording Academy that a Grammy for "Best New Classical Artist" was given. Mr. Yeh has taught masterclasses in clarinet and chamber music around the country and in Europe, and has been a faculty member at DePaul University in Chicago since 1979. In 1987 Mr. Yeh was elected to the Board of Governors of the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and in 1988 was chosen to serve on the Symphony/Ensemble Advisory Panel of the Illinois Arts Council.