Clarinetist David Krakauer exudes an emotionally raw yet genial presence, baring a tireless spirit, humor and generosity. His best-selling classical and Klezmer recordings further define his brilliant tone, virtuosity and imagination.

Krakauer is in demand worldwide as guest soloist with the finest chamber music groups. This past season he collaborated with the Tokyo String Quartet, the Eroica Trio, the Kronos Quartet, the Lark Quartet, the Mendelssohn String Quartet and the Empire Brass Quintet. Programs ranged from Brahms and Bartok to Schoenberg, Messaien and Golijov. In the 1999-2000 season he performs with the Arditti String Quartet and the American String Quartet, in addition to the Kronos.

As one of the foremost musicians of the vital new wave of Klezmer, David Krakauer tours the globe with his Klezmer Madness! ensemble. Colliding old world with new, Klezmer Madness! delivers a modern brand of Klezmer with equal parts angst and elation. While firmly rooted in traditional Klezmer folk tunes, the band "hurls the tradition of Klezmer music into the rock era" (Jon Pareles, The New York Times). Krakauer's compositions also pay homage to R&B, jazz, classical and funk.

Recent highlights for Krakauer and Klezmer Madness! include the closing set for the 1999 Bang on a Can Marathon; a sold-out concert at New York's Symphony Space; a concert on Brooklyn's "Arts at St. Ann's" series; multi-city European tours each summer; regular NYC club dates at the Knitting Factory and at Tonic; appearances at District Curators' JazzArts Festival in Washington, DC; and headlining gigs at the Dallas JCC Marathon festival and at Austria's Saalfelden Festival, where the group premiered Krakauer's 100th birthday tribute to the legendary jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet.

Krakauer's 1999-2000 season follows the ongoing success of his performing and recording collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. This past year he and Kronos performed Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind at London's Royal Festival Hall to rave reviews. They have also presented the work at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival ("Startlingly accomplished clarinet playing, " wrote Paul Griffiths in The New York Times); Cal Performances in Berkeley, California; Amsterdam's Concertgebouw; and in Copenhagen, Paris and Frankfurt. In August 1999 they perform the work at the famous Saalfelden Festival in Austria, followed by performances in Iowa City and San Francisco.

Krakauer and the Kronos' diverse musical styles were further utilized in the highly acclaimed recording of the Golijov work for Nonesuch Records, released spring of 1997. Time Out Magazine voted the disc one of the ten best of 1997. "Mr. Krakauer gives the work a truly gripping performance, " wrote The New York Times. And the UK's The Wire stated, "Krakauer's performance in particular is stunning - he really gets hold of a note when he bends it, and the result is thrilling. "

David Krakauer's newest CD on John Zorn's Tzadik label is entitled Klezmer, NY. It features his highly acclaimed suite, "A Klezmer Tribute to Sidney Bechet. " His debut CD on the Tzadik label was Klezmer Madness!, one of Tzadik's best-selling discs. Other Klezmer-related CDs include the groundbreaking Rhythm and Jews (Piranha/Flying Fish) and Jews with Horns (Piranha/Green Linnet), which Krakauer recorded during his seven years as clarinetist with The Klezmatics; and In the Fiddler's House (Angel), also a PBS television special in which he appears with violinist Itzhak Perlman and the Klezmatics. Additional CDs include Conlon Nancarrow: Orchestral, Chamber and Piano Music (Musical Heritage) with Continuum, and recordings for the Eva, Xenophile, CRI and Opus One labels.

Krakauer's musical affiliations have ranged from Music from Marlboro, New York Philomusica, John Cage, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and The Klezmatics, to solo appearances with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony and the Radio Orchestra of Berlin (RSO). As a member of the Aspen Wind Quintet, he won the 1984 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. Under the auspices of the Affiliate Artists program and the Concert Artists Guild Award, he has given numerous solo appearances and residency workshops throughout the U.S. A highlight among his solo performances was his interpretation of Luciano Berio's famously difficult clarinet Sequenza at New York's 92nd Street Y in front of nation-wide critics and Berio himself.

Both The New York Times and The New Yorker recently ran major feature profiles on David Krakauer. In August 1998 he was the subject of an International Herald Tribune story on his teaching of Klezmer music in the little town of Sejny, Poland; earlier he had appeared in a New York Times Magazine cover story on the renaissance of Judaism in Poland. Krakauer has also appeared on the nationally televised Late Night with David Letterman with Itzhak Perlman.

Before completing his master's degree at Juilliard under the tutelage of the legendary Leon Russianoff, Krakauer studied at Sarah Lawrence College and the Paris Conservatory. He is a member of the clarinet and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes College of Music and Queens College. He has composed works for Newband, Goliard, the Aids Quilt Songbook and his own improvisational/theatrical solo performances.

Klezmer in a church, Klezmer in Austria, jazz in a concert hall, classical in a rock club-Krakauer does it all with uncommon grace and authority.