Born in Taiwan and raised in Florida, clarinetist Elisha Willinger leads a versatile career as a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and orchestral performer. His appearances have included performing with many ensembles such as the Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Charleston Symphony, New World Symphony, and as principal with the New Haven Symphony. He has also performed chamber music with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
A winner of competitions including the 2012 Yamaha Young Performing Artists competition, 2017 Yale Chamber Music Society, and 2019 International Clarinet Association’s orchestral competition, he has performed in the US, Europe, and Canada and was soloist with The Royal Conservatory Chamber Orchestra. In 2018 he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in Weill Recital Hall as part of the Yale in New York series. He has spent summers performing as a fellow with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, Sarasota, Norfolk, American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, among others.
Dr. Willinger joined as the Assistant Teaching Professor of Clarinet at Ball State University in the Fall of 2023. An avid educator, he previously held faculty appointments at Washington & Lee and Radford Universities in Virginia. Additionally, he served as a Yale undergraduate clarinet instructor, Teaching Artist for Yale’s Music in the Schools Initiative in New Haven’s public schools, and Graduate Instructor at the University of Michigan. As part of the Willinger Duo ensemble with his brother, pianist Lior Willinger, he is committed to new music and commissioned works for clarinet and piano as they seek to expand the canon from composers of underrepresented backgrounds.
He holds graduate degrees from Yale University, University of Michigan, and The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto. His major teachers include distinguished clarinetists David Shifrin, Joaquin Valdepeñas, and Ixi Chen. He earned his Bachelor of Music from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. At the University of Michigan, he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree under the guidance of Daniel Gilbert and Chad Burrow.