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 biography
Karla Avila performs with various orchestras and
contemporary music ensembles in the Bay Area including the Monterey, Marin,
Fresno and Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestras, San Francisco Repertory
Orchestra, Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players and Ensemble Parallèle.
Recent winner of Salzburg’s Mozart Young Artist Concerto Competition, she
has performed as soloist in Salzburg, Austria as well as served as
principal clarinetist of the Amadeus Operensemble at the Austrian American
Mozart Academy. She has recorded the soundtrack by David Conte and Todd
Boekelheide to the Zeitgeist film Ballet Russes at George Lucas’
Skywalker Ranch, which opened in theaters nationwide in 2005. She has
played woodwinds and sung lead vocals in the jam band Nobody’s Mother and
currently is a member of the hip hop project Ensemble MikNawooj, the new music group Nothingset www.nothingset.com, and the Avenue
Winds www.avenuewinds.com. Read more about it
in Listen!
Karla Raquel Avila was born and raised in
El Paso, Texas. Her earliest musical memories are of singing in the church
choir with her grandmother when she was three years old. When she was six
years old, she was given an electric organ as a gift and began
experimenting with music. At age 11 she started playing the clarinet in the
school band and in high school also joined the jazz band where she played
tenor and bari sax. During her years at Franklin High School, she performed
as principal clarinet in the El Paso All-Region Orchestra and was a member
of the Texas All-State Band. She also sang lead vocals for a
Seattle-influenced local rock band called Floor, which was founded by
herself and her close friends, members of the ska band Liquid Cheese, http://www.liquidcheese.com.
While attending the University of North
Texas College of Music, http://www.music.unt.edu, Karla studied
clarinet with Dr. John Scott and performed with the UNT Symphony Orchestra
and Wind Symphony as well as studied saxophone, piano, and voice. She
minored in Music Theory and graduated Valedictorian of the School of Music
in December 2000. It was in college that she began experimenting with
fusion, funk, prog rock, and world music. She then moved to San Francisco
to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, http://www.sfcm.edu,
where she studied clarinet with the late great
David Breeden, former principal clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony
and fellow UNT alumni. David was instrumental to Karla’s development as a
musician, and in her opinion, one of the greatest clarinetists who ever
lived.
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