Richie Hawley leaving Cincinnati Symphony, CCM, for Rice University

By Janelle Gelfand • jgelfand@enquirer.com • November 1, 2010

Richie Hawley, principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 1994, confirmed Monday night that he will leave his Cincinnati position to become professor of clarinet at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston.

Hawley will be joining the Rice faculty next fall. The school announced his hiring earlier Monday.

Hawley will also resign his post at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, where he heads the clarinet department. Under his leadership, the CCM program has emerged as become one of the most outstanding in the country.

“This is an unbelievable musical milestone for me, and I love teaching more than anything,” he said.

“I’m going to miss my friends in Cincinnati,” he said.

Hawley will remain in both positions until the end of the 2010-11 season. He said the CSO would likely wait until a new music director is selected to replace Paavo Järvi, who is also leaving after the current season, before a new principal clarinet is picked.

Hawley is a symphony star. His velvety, sonorous sound is regularly heard in orchestral solos in Music Hall and in the orchestra’s recordings. The Los Angeles native was appointed principal clarinet of the CSO in 1994 at the age of 23, only two years after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music.

Hawley is an active chamber musician locally, and appears as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has received awards as both a performer and an educator. He was one of five musicians to receive a Gold Medal as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts from President Ronald Reagan in a White House ceremony in 1988. Hawley received the 2009 Glover Award for Outstanding Teacher of the Year at CCM’s convocation ceremony.

Hawley will succeed Michael Webster, who will retire as professor of clarinet at Rice at the end of this academic year.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20101...ing-a-star

Richie Hawley calls his new position “huge step in a different direction”
Posted by jgelfand November 1st, 2010, 10:23 pm

Principal clarinetist Richie Hawley confirmed this evening that he will be leaving his positions with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, where he has performed since 1994, to take a prestigious job as professor of clarinet at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. He will leave the CSO, as well as his position as head of the Clarinet Department at CCM, at the end of this season.

“I’m going to miss my friends in Cincinnati,” he said. “But this is an unbelievable musical milestone for me. I love teaching more than anything. This gives me the opportunity to be much more involved with my students.”

Saying that he is immensely impressed with the Shepherd School’s instrumental and orchestral programs, Hawley added that his decision is “a huge step in a different direction. There’s a whole world of chamber music that I’m dying to play. The clarinet has such a vast repertoire.”

The faculty at Rice are all performing artists, he said, and he hopes to return to Cincinnati to perform on the Concert:Nova and Linton Chamber Music Series, where he has been a regular fixture.

Hawley said the most difficult thing for him was telling his clarinet students this evening that he will not be at CCM next year. He said that he turned in his resignation to the CSO on Friday.

Given that the orchestra is in the midst of a search for a music director to succeed Paavo Jarvi, who is also leaving in May, the CSO will likely wait until a new music director is in place before holding auditions for a new principal clarinet.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/arts/2010/11...direction/