Bharat Chandra’s career has taken him across the world as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. Currently Principal Clarinet of the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Bharat spent the Fall of 2011 as Guest Principal Clarinet in the Sydney Opera House. Soloist engagements have taken him through England and across the United States, including a performance of Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet with Michael Tilson Thomas and the U.S. Premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s concerto, Riffs and Refrains, here at Cabrillo with Marin Alsop. Bharat studied at Southern Methodist University and continued at the New England Conservatory of Music, becoming the first student of Richard Stoltzman and receiving the Gunther Schuller Medal upon graduation. His formal studies concluded at the New World Symphony in Miami. Bharat has recorded chamber music by composers Dan Welcher and John Zorn and will appear in the forthcoming NAXOS release of Annelies, an oratorio by James Whitbourn, based on the diary of Anne Frank. In the spring of 2013, Bharat is scheduled to join soprano Arianna Zukerman and the Lincoln Trio for performances of Annelies at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.. Outside of his musical career, Bharat directs the non-profit organization KAETA (Kids And Elders Through Arts) whose mission is to create an entertaining and educational dialogue between students and seniors through shared experiences in the arts. Bharat is married to Anne Chandra, Cabrillo’s Assistant Principal Second Violin.
Bharat Chandra
Principal Clarinet
Current Residence: Sarasota FL
My primary instrument is: clarinet
I also play: hide and seek with my daughters
I was born in: Pullman WA
I started playing in the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in: 2001
Favorite piece performed at Cabrillo: The one I'm currently performing, until it's over. After that, it's complicated.
When I am not at Cabrillo Festival, I engage with music this way: I perform with the Sarasota Orchestra and Sarasota Wind Quintet