Daniel Cloutier

Daniel Cloutier—born and raised in New England—started playing trombone at age 13. Within three years he was performing professionally in the Norwalk (CT) Symphony Orchestra, beginning a long and peripatetic orchestral career, including early positions in the Skokie Valley Symphony, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, the Lake Forest Symphony, and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. Later positions have included the New Orleans Symphony, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Oregon Symphony. He has also been a guest member of the trombone sections of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. He also performed on Broadway in a revival production of Peter Pan starring Cathy Rigby. Cloutier earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Music from Northwestern University, his Master’s Degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and the Doctorate of Musical Arts from West Virginia University. His Dissertation—“Ludwig van Beethoven’s Orchestration of the Trombone”—was a finalist for the 2010 ITEA Clifford Bevan Award for Excellence in Research, and has become required reading at several schools of music. A Schilke Performing Artist, Cloutier is currently Principal Trombone of the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, a position he has held for 24 years. The list of artists with which he has performed is notable, including such conductors as Neeme Jaarvi, Edo DeWaart, Karina Canellakis, Wolfgang Sawallish, Marin Alsop, Hans Vonk, Simon Rattle, Alondra de la Parra, Leonard Slatkin, Jaap van Zweden, Maxim Shostakovich, Jemma New, Hugh Wolff, Erich Kunzel, and Marvin Hamlish. The venues in which he has performed rank among the top concert halls in the world, including Symphony Hall in Boston, Carnegie Hall, the Proms (Royal Albert Hall) in London, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Cloutier’s discography is equally impressive: CDs with the Minnesota Orchestra (Stravinsky, Rite of Spring), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Copland, Old American Songs; “Paper Music” with Bobby McFerrin; Haydn, The Seasons), the Plymouth Music Series (Ethel Smyth, Mass), and the Grant Park Orchestra (Colgrass, Snow Walker, Kurka, Orchestral Masterpieces, and most recently The Pulitzer Project). His first solo CD—Sideways Glances for Solo Trombone and Synthesized Sounds—was released in 2016. Cloutier is a strong supporter of new music: in addition to his premiere of Sideways Glances by Kenneth A. Jacobs, he premiered Dance to the Music of Time by Wesley Ward in 2004 and Precipice by Stephen Taylor in 1991. Cloutier has composed two trombone quartets, one brass quintet, and one short work for brass choir. His arrangements of existing works for trombone quartet, trombone choir, and brass quartet are too numerous to list. In his limited spare time, when he is not practicing, Cloutier pursues reading, hiking, birdwatching, and domestic lumberjack activities.