Catherine Wood

Klarinette

Professor of Clarinet, Brandon University , President-Elect, International Clarinet Association Clarinet, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra .

Clarinetist Catherine Wood is an established performer, educator, and advocate of Canadian music. She has been a featured guest artist at festivals across the globe, including the International Clarinet Association ClarinetFests, Nordic Music Days in the Faroe Islands, and a recent tour in Armenia and Georgia with multi-JUNO award winner David Braid. An enthusiast of new music, Wood has commissioned and premiered numerous works at festivals that celebrate new music, including the Winnipeg New Music Festival, GroundSwell, and Iceland’s Dark Music Days. In 2019, Wood earned a Guinness World Record as a member of the world’s largest clarinet choir.

A proponent of the piccolo clarinets, Catherine has commissioned and performed music for Eb and D clarinets throughout the world. In 2016, she was honoured to perform Molter’s Concerto No. 1 for D Clarinet at an evening concert for featured guest artists at the ICA ClarinetFest in Orlando.

A sought-after clinician and adjudicator, Dr. Wood has served on many international competition juries, including several ICA Young Artist Competitions. She adjudicated the inaugural International Mozart Clarinet Competition in 2011 at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, where she heard seventy performances of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in one day.

Catherine performs regularly with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Brandon Chamber Players, the Devil Sticks Clarinet Quartet, Trio Joya, and with Victoria Sparks in their percussion and clarinet duo Viðarneisti. Her recent chamber music recordings include the 2021 Western Canadian Music Award Winner 100,000 Lakes (Classical Composer of the Year, T. Patrick Carrabré) and Radio Static (Devil Sticks Clarinet Quartet). She has enjoyed performing with artists such as James Campbell, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Colin Carr, James Ehnes, James Sommerville, Marc-André Hamelin, and Measha Brueggergosman.

Dr. Wood is on faculty at Brandon University, where she has built a thriving clarinet studio. Her clarinet choir tours annually and was invited to perform several premieres at the 2014 ICA ClarinetFest in Baton Rouge and the 2023 ICA ClarinetFest in Denver. In 2011, Wood founded the BU Clarinet Festival, an annual event featuring some of the top performers and pedagogues in the world.

Wood serves as President of the International Clarinet Association and is a member of the Bass Clarinet Association of Canada. She is a Buffet Crampon and Vandoren Paris performing artist.

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Discography

Radio Static by Devil Sticks

The Devil Sticks Clarinet Quartet, formed by Christina Giacona, Catherine Wood, Meghan Merciers, and Spencer Prewitt in thesummer of 2018, is dedicated to expanding the ensemble repertoire for clarinetists by programming, performing, and commissioning music from different countries, styles and genres.

Onyx Lane 2021

Radio Static by Devil Sticks

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100,000 Lakes

Composer Patrick Carrabré: The music on this album brings together many of my interests. Chamber music with various combinations of strings and piano has been central to my output, as has collaborations with artists from outside the western classical tradition. In recent years I have also been working with electronic and manipulated audio sources as a means of augmenting the possibilities of acoustic instruments. Thematically, these works search for connections to the past, while hoping that we will learn from that past and forge a better future, where diversity is valued and our connection to each other and the natural world nourishes our spirits.

Winter Winds Records

100,000 Lakes

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