Michael Collins was born on 27 January 1962 in Isleworth, west London, and took up the clarinet at the age of seven after hearing the London Symphony Orchestra play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. He studied at the Royal College of Music with David Hamilton and Thea King, and at sixteen won the woodwind prize at the inaugural BBC Young Musician competition in 1978. A brief period at the Juilliard School with Stanley Drucker followed before he returned to King’s teaching in London. He joined the Nash Ensemble and the London Sinfonietta in 1981, and later served as principal clarinet of the Philharmonia Orchestra from 1987 to 1995.

Collins is widely regarded as one of the leading clarinettists of his generation, appearing as soloist with orchestras including the NHK Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus and BBC Symphony, and making his Carnegie Hall and Proms debuts in 1982 and 1984. He has recorded more than thirty-five albums and has premiered significant new works, among them John Adams’s Gnarly Buttons, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Riffs and Refrains and Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Concerto. He taught at the Royal College of Music from 1985 to 1995 and has advised Yamaha on clarinet design. He also works as a conductor, serving as principal conductor of the City of London Sinfonia from 2010 to 2018.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Collins_(clarinetist)