Selected Highlights

• Academic: Bachelor’s degree in music theory and composition, Yale College. Master’s in clarinet performance at Juilliard. JD at Brooklyn Law School; LL.M in Taxation at New York University. Master’s in Jazz Performance at Florida International University (2009).


• Youthful Successes: At age 13, selected by Leonard Bernstein to be a guest performer with the New York Philharmonic on Bernstein’s Young People’s Concert, televised and still issued on CD. At age 16, performed with cellist Jacqueline du Pre and pianist Richard Goode in the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. At age 17, won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, management for exceptional upcoming musicians.


• Symphonic: Has performed as principal clarinetist with National Orchestra Association; New Haven Symphony, Santo Domingo Music Festival, Florida Grand Opera Orchestras, Atlantic Classical Orchestra, Symphony of the Americas, Colorado Music Festival, Santo Domingo Music Festival, Miami City Ballet, and Boca Symphonia, among others.


• Chamber Music Festivals and Recitals: Chisinau, Moldova; Krakow, Poland; Pusan, Korea; Xian, China; Wienermusikseminar, Vienna; Brasov, Romania; Cuernavaca, Mexico.


• Collaborations: Borromeo, Miami, St. Lawrence, Ying, Lark, Fine Arts and Cuarteto Latinoamericano quartets; American Chamber Players; Charles Wadsworth, Richard Goode, Dick Hyman; Judaica Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University.


• Entrepreneur: Founded and directed Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival, Delray Beach, Fla., 1996-2003 and Klezmer East. Created and directed first Jewish Music Festival in Pittsfield, Mass.


• Honors: Named Artistic Ambassador for the United States Information Agency, concertizing in Moldova, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Oman. Appointed to the 25th Anniversary Leadership Council of Chamber Music America.


• Recordings: Return to the Concert Stage (classical); Traditional Klezmer Favorites; Mobiles: The Music of Fred Kaufman; Fives for Five: Florida Woodwind Quintet.

13 year old Paul Green with Leonard Bernstein

The orchestra teacher wanted eight-year-old Paul Green to play the viola. But once the young Paul heard the sound of the clarinet, it was clarinet or nothing. That determination fueled a passion for music and an unusual career that few can match.

Clearly a budding talent, Green began studying privately with the noted clarinet pedagogue Leon Russianoff. Accomplished at age 13, he was chosen by Leonard Bernstein to be a featured guest in a televised Young People’s Concert with the New York Philharmonic in 1962, performing and recording Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals. Just three years later, artistic director and pianist Charles Wadsworth invited Green to the Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, Italy, where he performed with Mr. Wadsworth and renowned artists Jacqueline du Pre, Richard Goode and Judith Blegen.

In 1966, Green won the prestigious Young Concert Artists International Auditions and attended Yale University, where he studied with Keith Wilson, and performed as principal clarinetist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. He graduated Yale with a BA in Theory and Composition in 1970 and continued his studies at Juilliard, where he studied with Joseph Allard, receiving an MS degree in performance in 1972.

From 1970-75, he soloed with the National Orchestral Association, the Hartford, Springfield and Kansas City symphonies, and performed chamber music with Richard Goode, Fred Sherry, Ko Iwasaki and Ursula Oppens, among others.

It was at this period Green began considering other career possibilities. Offered the co-principal clarinet position of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, he instead opted to attend Brooklyn Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review and a member of the Moot Court Honor Society. He graduated cum laude in 1978. In 1985, after several years at prominent New York law firms, Green joined the faculty of Brooklyn Law School.

Paul Green as a Young Concert Artists winner.

A successful attorney and law professor, Green couldn’t suppress his passion or drive for music. Although he hadn’t touched the clarinet for five years, Green returned to his original teacher, Leon Russianoff, for advice and coaching. In a rousing comeback, he won the Distinguished Artists Award, part of the 1988 Artists International Competition. In 1989 he was appointed first clarinetist of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. In 1990 he returned to music full time and played a solo recital at Merkin Concert Hall in New York, which garnered a rave review in The New York Times. Just two years back into the profession, Green was named to the clarinet Artist/Faculty position at the newly formed Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton (now the Lynn University Conservatory of Music).

In 1997, Green was selected as an Artistic Ambassador for the United States Information Agency for which he concertized in Moldova and the Middle East. He has participated in international festivals of contemporary music in Krakow, Poland and Chisinau, Moldova in 1999, 2000 and 2001, as well as the 2002 International Clarinet and Saxophone Festival in Xian, China, the Wienermusikseminar 2002 in Vienna, the EuroArts Festival in Pusan, Korea, and as a soloist in Brasov, Romania in the summer of 2003.

Chamber music performances include the Austin Chamber Music Festival and the Castle Hill Music Festival, the Kneisel Hall Festival, the Festival at Sandpoint, the Colorado Music Festival, the Yale University Summer Festival at Norfolk, Conn., and The Friends of Music Festival in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Green performed at a “Watch and Play” program for children at Tanglewood and has given master classes at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, and many schools in South Florida.

Pittsfield Ethnic Fair 2009

He was the founder and Artistic Director of the Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival in Delray Beach, and in 2003 he was appointed to the 25th Anniversary Leadership Council of Chamber Music America.

Presently, he is a member of the faculties of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and Florida International University in Miami, where he teaches clarinet performance and chamber music. He is a founding member of the Florida Woodwind Quintet, also in residence at Florida Atlantic University, and a member of the Nodus Ensemble, a contemporary music group in residence at Florida International University. He is currently the Principal Clarinetist of the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra.

Green founded Klezmer East in 2003, and the band has performed in countless communities, synagogues and churches and other venues on both coasts of Florida. The ensemble is in residence at FAU.

Green is also active on the lecture circuit. Called the “go-to guy for Jewish music,” he regularly engages audiences with his lecture-demonstrations on a variety of topics related to Jewish music, as well as jazz and other themes.