ELIAS GILBERT

Elias Gilbert is a clarinetist, conductor, and composer from Santa Cruz, California, currently based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama by way of New Haven, Connecticut and Baltimore, Maryland. Influenced by a broad range of joyful experiences in orchestral playing and conducting, chamber music, big band, marching band, and musical theater, Elias is committed to expanding the horizons of orchestral and instrumental music.​ 

 

Elias is currently Music Director of the University of Alabama Campus Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the Huxford Symphony Orchestra under Ransom Wilson. In summer 2026, he served as Assistant Conductor and Principal Clarinet at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival under Scott Yoo, and was a Conducting Scholar at the Eastern Festival of Music, studying with Gerard Schwarz.

 

Elias recently concluded his tenure as Music Director of the Johns Hopkins Medical Orchestra (HMO), an orchestra of doctors, medical students, researchers, and community members in East Baltimore Maryland. In addition to standard repertoire, Elias led the HMO in a major fundraising effort that allowed the orchestra for the first time to perform rental works by underrepresented composers and to commission a series of new works based on Hopkins Medical research by emerging professional composers at Peabody Conservatory. As Principal Conductor of the Davenport Pops Orchestra from 2022 to 2024, he performed a wide variety of student arrangements and light classical repertoire, including John Williams’ Harry Potter and Star Wars scores, Danzón No. 2 by Arturo Marquez, Charles Ives’ Yale-Princeton Football Game, and the instant classic Taylor Swift: The Eras Medley. He also served as Assistant Conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, studying with William Boughton. With the YSO, he conducted the iconic annual midnight Halloween Show in sold-out Woolsey Hall. He also led outreach performances on the YSO’s 2023 Mexico Tour, including narrating chamber and orchestral concerts in Spanish for local children and translating promotional materials. As Music Director of the Yale Undergraduate Chamber Orchestra, Elias conducted Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Ravel’s Ma Mere l’Oye and collaborated with student soloists and composers. Having led each of these organizations through times of major organizational change, he is proud to have contributed to the strong growth that each of these orchestras have continued to experience since his tenure. 

 

As a soloist, Elias performed Bruch’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola with the Berkeley College Orchestra in 2023 as well as Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony in 2019. His recent recital performances have featured an eclectic mix of repertoire, including the Nielsen and Copland Clarinet Concertos, Shulamit Ran’s For An Actor, Clara Schumann's Drei Romanzen, Germaine Tailleferre's Sonata for Clarinet Solo, Adolphus Hailstork’s Three Smiles for Tracey, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet and Kegelstatt Trio, Johanna Magdalena Beyer's Suite I for Clarinet, and Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes. He also periodically joins the "Jazz on High" band at Peace United Church of Christ in Santa Cruz, CA for special services. 

 

An avid orchestral player, Elias has played principal clarinet in the Yale Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Conductors’ Orchestra, and the Colorado College Summer Music Festival Orchestra. He also plays frequently in musical theater pit orchestras, doubling on flute and piccolo, soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet, and even accordion with companies including Cabrillo Stage (In the Heights), The Western Stage (Young Frankenstein, Evita), the Yale Dramatic Association (Cabaret, A Chorus Line, The Addams Family), and others (A New Brain, Peter Pan, Indecent, Falstaff). 

 

Elias is also an active composer, arranger, and supporter of contemporary music. In past summers, Elias’ works were premiered at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music: his Quartet for Four Violins (2021) and "Meditation" for Clarinet, Violin, and Singing Bowl (2022). His compositions often explore computational and aleatoric elements, stemming in part from his prior training as a mathematician and influenced by Larry Polansky and others. His arranging credits for the Davenport Pops Orchestra range from Lil Nas X’s "Industry Baby" to Howard Shore’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Elias also contributed orchestrations for the original musical Word Nerd by Charlie Romano (2022). His chamber group, the Nuovi Venti Saxophone Quartet, released their eponymous album in 2020, which featured a wide range of repertoire including Bach, jazz standards, and contemporary works, including Elias’ arrangements and his cheeky scherzo movement "Da-ba-da-dat" (2019).

 

Elias received a Master of Music in Clarinet Performance at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, studying clarinet with Alexander Fiterstein and conducting with Dr. Harlan Parker. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from Yale University in 2024, where he studied conducting with William Boughton. He is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Alabama, studying with renowned conductor and flutist Ransom Wilson.