Larry Combs, Clarinet

Biography

Larry Combs is an American clarinetist. His principal teachers were Stanley Hasty at the Eastman School of Music and Leon Russianoff in New York.

He played clarinet with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the Santa Fe Opera before joining the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1974. He was appointed principal clarinet of the CSO by Sir Georg Solti
in 1978. He has appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on many
occasions. He will be retiring from the CSO following the 2007-2008
season to spend more time teaching clarinet students at DePaul University.

He is also a founding member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians. He has performed the Brahms Trio in A minor with Daniel Barenboim and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and has appeared at the Ravinia Festival with its music director, Christoph Eschenbach. Other appearances have been with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Smithsonian Chamber Players.

Combs is also a jazz aficionado. His Combs-Novak Sextet is one of the headliners at the 1999 Chicago Jazz Festival; he cut an album with jazz clarinetist Eddie Daniels, called "Crossing the Line"; and the Chicago Reader's
Ted Shen wrote that he is "a Benny Goodman-like chameleon who can
execute breathtaking arabesques and add a touch of eloquence to the
plainest phrase."

He is a clinician for the G. Leblanc Company, which makes the Opus II clarinets he helped to design, and the Larry Combs models of clarinet mouthpieces.

He is married to Gail Williams, a horn professor at Northwestern University, and retired Associate Principal Horn of the Chicago Symphony.