Sunshine Simmons is the associate professor of Clarinet at the University of North Florida. Her orchestral experience has included positions with the Oregon Ballet Theatre, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic, New Mexico Philharmonic, Quad City Symphony, and South Bend Symphony. She has been heard on the stages performing with the Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Grant Park symphony orchestras, as well as the Santa Fe Opera and Lyric Opera Orchestra.
Chamber music activities have involved collaborations with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, eighth blackbird, International Chamber Artists, Santa Fe New Music, and Chatter, as well as St Lawrence String Quartet at Stanford University. She has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Ravinia Festival, and the St. Augustine Music Festival. A featured artist in the Chicago based Dame Myra Hess Concert series, she has also been a recitalist in the Cummer Family Foundation Chamber Music Series.
Internationally, Simmons has been a soloist at the Frutillar Music Festival in Chile, performed a live radio broadcast of Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto in Cluj, Romania, collaborated in a chamber music performance with the Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan, and was a recitalist in Belgium through the International Clarinet Association. She has presented lectures at Arizona State University, Ball State University, and University of Ohio and given masterclasses throughout the United States.
In addition to a number of orchestral recordings, Simmons can be most recently heard on her debut CD titled Discovery: Recital Music for Bass Clarinet and Piano. She holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University and is a Buffet Crampon and D’Addario Artist.
