On Sunday 18 May at 15:00, the Hilton College Music Department was proud to present in the Memorial Hall. Bryan was accompanied by South African Pianist, Francois du Toit from UCT. Hilton College boys had the opportunity to hear him perform on Tuesday evening, 20 May 2008.

Bryan Crumpler

Clarinetist 

   
African American Clarinetist Bryan A. Crumpler (b. Sept. 9, 1979, Greenville, NC USA) was born to a family of athletes and was destined to become a professional football player. His father Carlester is a record setting “Hall of Famer” who was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in 2002 next to legendary athletic figures such as Dean Smith and Nascar great Richard Petty. Following in dad’s footsteps are two brothers Alge & Carlester Jr., who have also become all-stars in the National Football League. Bryan however, having never been good at facing off with 300-lbs human bulldozers, decided to take to an old pastime of his mother Gertha and follow a different path… Music.

Bryan began singing as a young boy and ventured into studying piano privately at age 7. At the age of 12 however, he decided to explore new ground and move on to a different instrument. After several attempts at the violin and after developing many fat upper-lips on a hand-me-down trombone from his brother, a clarinet was given to him as a gift from friends of the family. Bryan took to the instrument immediately, discovering a talent that would serve as the trigger catapulting him to far and unseen corners of the world.
By the age of 14 – less than 18 months after beginning – Bryan had learned the Mozart Clarinet Concerto by ear, simply listening to a 4-dollar cassette tape of the work bought from a local gas station. His efforts were not in vain as it earned him the opportunity to perform the concerto with the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra after winning their regional concerto competition several months later. Since that debut at age 15, Bryan has been inching his way to the limelight as a concert soloist & chamber musician of the 21st century.

To date, audiences throughout the USA, the Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy have been able to witness Bryan at work. He has dabbled in everything from pure Classical (Contemporary & Traditional) to Klezmer, Avant Garde, Dixieland, Jazz, R&B Easy Listening, Film Music and even Rock. He has used music to reach the hearts and minds of audiences, young and old, despite the supposed limitations of genre. He plans to continue making his mark on the international scene with concerts in Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and Africa.
Bryan’s performances have been described as ingenius, charismatic, personal, emotional, dizzying, and dazzling in pure artistry, and he has earned critical acclaim from a wide variety of press & media organizations. According to audiences, Bryan has the ability to not only capture the mood and essence of the work in his sound and the musical interpretation, but also in his bodily expression. Concertmaster Liviu Prunaru of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam as well as Russian pianist/conductor/composer Alexander Rabinovich have also praised him for his enthusiastic performances. Celebrated jazz great Branford Marsalis put it simply: “He’s a real musician… and you don’t get to meet those every day”. As for the clarinet faction, clarinetists Karl Leister, Guy Dangain, Andrew Marriner, Charles Neidich and Freddy Arteel have written and spoken very highly of him.

As for his honors, Bryan holds an impressive collection both academically and musically. In addition to being awarded a prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship in 1997 (regarded as one of the premiere and most competitive academic scholarships to a public university in the globe), he was a recipient of the Park Scholarship, Elks National Foundation MVS award, Joe Martin Bank of America Foundation Scholarship, the Tandy Technology Merit Award, and was a finalist for the Pogue Scholarship. He has also been awarded a Graduate Fellowship from the US-Belgian Embassy and the Ministry of the Flemish Community.

Musically, his awards include over a dozen top prizes and stage-deportment awards in international young artist competitions and 16 medals in regional honor bands in his youth. He has also received a number of invitations to festivals and concert series throughout Europe.

Highlights from past seasons include winning a top prize in the 14th bi-annual edition of the Dos Hermanas International Clarinet Competition in Spain, concerts of new music with famed pianist Alexander Rabinovich-Barakovsky & Maria Fetodova, chamber concerts at the Tuscania International Chamber Music Festival in Italy and the Klara Festival of Flanders in Brussels, and the Mozart Quintet on the Ciurlionis String Quartet 2006 tour in Belgium. Additionally he released his first CD “Monochrome” in October 2005 and made a benefit performance for the Katrina Hurricane Victims in the fall of 2006. The recording of an instrumental arrangement of 5-time Grammy Award winner Sandi Patty’s “Amazing Grace” is to his credit as a result of this performance.

Aside from music, Bryan is actively involved in theatrical arts. To date, he has been on the sidelines in film productions such as: “My Teachers Wife” with noteworthy actors Jason London and Tia Carèrre; “Blue River”, with Susan Dey and Jerry O’Connel; “What Women Need” from Fixed Odds Productions; and “De Puta Madre”, which was recently featured in the Flanders Film Festival in Belgium. He has additionally performed as a guest soloist with the Wilmington Symphony in a Frank Capra production of “Symphony on the Set” at Screen Gems Studios. Screen Gems is acknowledged as the largest and most important movie studio east of Hollywood. Also noteworthy are Bryan’s performances with the Royal Marine Band of Belgium and Royal Wind Symphony of Nazareth as the principal actor/sprechstimme for Jacob De Haan’s “The Book of Urizen”. These performances afforded him the opportunity to perform on multiple occasions in the company of King Albert of Belgium and members of the royal family.

Along with acting, Bryan has also juggled music with IT as one of the lead Community Managers for the explosive, online youth portal Netlog.com launched in the fall of 2006. His love for languages and multi-lingual skills has additionally allowed him to maintain a freelance operation in translation/interpretation. In his spare time, he likes to watch movies, read non-fiction, play soccer, sightsee, and scour the Internet. In other words, Bryan never sleeps.

Bryan’s teachers have been Professor Donald Oehler & Dr. Michael Votta of UNC Chapel Hill during which time he was also coached by distinguished artists Andrew Marriner (Principal Clarinet, London Symphony), Freddy Arteel (Principal Clarinet Emeritus, Royal Philharmonic of Antwerp) & David Campbell (Canterbury Christ Church College of London). In the 2004-05 season, he received a fellowship from the Ministry of the Flemish Community to do an artist residency and graduate study in Belgium.

In addition to private study, Bryan has also been coached in masterclasses by Jimmy Gilmore (Principal Clarinetist, North Carolina Symphony), Todd Palmer (YCA artist), Dr. Nathan Williams (Interlochen/former Professor of Clarinet, East Carolina Univ.), Dr. Ray McClellan (UMSC President’s Own & Univ. of Georgia), & Dr. Kelly Burke (Professor of Clarinet, UNC-Greensboro), Howard Klug (Indiana University), Marie Picard (Asst. Principal, Quebec Symphony Orchestra), Robert Riseling (University of Western Ontario), Alan Black (Principal Cellist, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra), and Dana Protopescu (Staff Accompanist, Queen Elisabeth Competition).