Leslie Grimm is a prominent Chicago clarinetist whose career spans more than 40 years of orchestral, chamber, solo, opera, ballet, musical theater, and studio recording work. A versatile and highly experienced freelance musician, she performs on the full range of clarinets and has established a distinguished career across a wide spectrum of musical settings. She has performed with many of the region’s most respected ensembles, including the Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Grant Park Symphony Orchestras; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Joffrey Ballet; American Ballet Theatre; Chicago Sinfonietta; Music of the Baroque; Chicago Philharmonic; and Chicago Opera Theater.
Grimm currently serves as the principal clarinetist of the Chicago Sinfonietta, the MacArthur Award–winning orchestra recognized for its commitment to diversity in classical music. She has performed extensively with the ensemble and has participated in six European tours. Her orchestral career also includes performances and tours with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, including appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, as well as recording projects with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Symphony Orchestra.
A longtime member of the Chicago musical community, Grimm has performed regularly with Lyric Opera of Chicago since 1992, including a season as bass clarinetist. She has appeared in productions both in the orchestra pit and onstage as a featured clarinet soloist. Her extensive performance experience also includes engagements in numerous Chicago musical theater productions. She recently retired from the Peninsula Music Festival, where she served as bass clarinetist and performed regularly since 2012.
Grimm’s solo repertoire includes Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, Weber’s Concertino and Clarinet Concerto No. 1, Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, and Victor Babin’s Hillandale Waltzes. She has also appeared as a featured soloist with the Chicago Sinfonietta at Symphony Center in Krommer’s Concerto in E-flat Major for Two Clarinets. Her career has included extensive studio and commercial recording work, with performances for national advertising campaigns and commercial productions.
Grimm is equally committed to teaching and chamber music. She serves as Coordinator of Wind Chamber Music and chamber music coach at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where she has taught for more than 30 years. Her work at Northwestern has included applied clarinet instruction, chamber music coaching and administration, and performance in solo and chamber settings. She previously taught at Northern Illinois University, the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, the American Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern’s High School Summer Music Institute. She has also served as a clinician at schools throughout the Chicago area and was co-founder and director of Clarinet Camp, a program for junior high and high school clarinetists.
A lifelong student of breathing and sound production, Grimm studied clarinet with Robert Marcellus at Northwestern University, Russell Dagon of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and George Silfies of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Her broader studies have included instruction with legendary brass pedagogue Arnold Jacobs and woodwind and breathing specialist Keith Underwood, as well as extensive exploration of the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method. These experiences have profoundly influenced her approach to performance and teaching, particularly her understanding of breath, resonance, body awareness, and efficient sound production.
Grimm’s teaching and performing philosophy centers on helping musicians develop greater freedom, resonance, efficiency, and expressive possibility. Her continuing exploration of breathing has led to her forthcoming books, First the Air: A Breathing Compendium for Woodwind Players as well as Ultimate Long Tones for Clarinet. Through her performing, teaching, writing, and coaching, Grimm brings together decades of professional experience with an ongoing curiosity about how the breath, body, and musical expression work together.