"Karla Avila's rich tone and smooth delivery

filled the hall's resonant space with

Messiaen's whirling, melancholy lines."

~Phyllis Rosenblum, Santa Cruz Sentinel, March 11, 2010

About Karla Avila...

Karla Avila combines her virtuosic and deeply expressive clarinetistry with her passion for Western classical music and musical styles the world over, in dynamic and innovative live performances ranging from the traditional to the latest in genre-bending experimental. She has worked with the San Francisco Symphony, Lyric Opera, and Choral Society and performs regularly with numerous orchestras and ensembles throughout Northern California. She recently performed in the national Broadway productions of Wicked and West Side Story and has premiered over fifty new works by living composers with numerous cutting-edge new music ensembles, including the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, Ensemble Mik Nawooj, Ensemble Parallèle, New Music Works, Avenue Winds, New Keys, and Nothingset Ensemble. From 2004-2008, Karla served as principal clarinetist of the Amadeus Operensemble in Salzburg, Austria. Recent winner of the Salzburg Festspiele’s Young Artist Mozart Concerto Competition, Ms. Avila performed as soloist in Salzburg's famed Haus für Mozart (Kleines Festspielhaus) under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. She has recorded the soundtracks by composer David Conte to the Zeitgeist film Ballet Russes at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, and the PBS documentary Orozco: Man of Fire at Dolby San Francisco, and has played woodwinds, composed and sung vocals with the chamber-jazz-folk band Nobody’s Mother. Karla has also appeared live and on albums by San Francisco and Oakland-based bands The Music Lovers, Fleeting Trance, Matthew Edwards and The Unfortunates, and Jack O’ The Clock.

Karla’s current projects include performance art collaborations with music therapist-dancer Elizabeth Boubion, and a series of original compositions on “favorite landscapes and happy places” for clarinet, voice and other acoustic instruments with electronics. In January 2011, she performed the Bay Area premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s There is Wind and there are ashes in the wind for clarinet and piano with New Music Works in Santa Cruz, and will perform the world premiere of new works by Bay Area composers Damon Waitkus and Daniel Wood with members of New Keys and Avenue Winds in April 2011. Karla will also perform as soloist at the International Clarinet Association's ClarinetFest in August 2011, in a tribute concert to her former teacher and longtime principal clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony, the late great David Breeden.

Ms. Avila is currently the principal clarinetist of the Nothingset Ensemble, New Music Works, Avenue Winds (artists-in-residence at the annual San Francisco Chamber Winds Festival), and the St. Peters Chamber Orchestra. Karla is also an original member of Classical Revolution and remains active as a chamber musician performing in intimate settings and performance art venues throughout her San Francisco Mission District neighborhood.

Ms. Avila earned her M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2003 and her B.M. from the University of North Texas in 2001. She was recently appointed to the woodwind and jazz faculty at Laney College in Oakland, CA and the French-American International School in San Francisco. She maintains a private teaching studio in San Francisco and at Logan High School in Union City and enjoys spending her free time communing with nature and exploring the wilderness.