Clarinetist Adella Carlson is a performer, educator, and arts administrator passionate about increasing the social relevance and accessibility of contemporary classical music. Adella currently holds positions as the Administrative Assistant for the UNCG School of Music, the Ensemble Manager for the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the Marketing Manager for New Works Project. Adella performs frequently throughout the US in solo, chamber, and large ensemble contexts.  As a founding member of the Chaos Incarné Trio, which exists to commission and perform works by underrepresented composers, Adella has been invited to play at the American Single Reed Summit, Hero Conference, ICA Low Clarinet Festival, and Clarinetfest. Adella teaches a studio of both clarinet and piano students online and in person, and is a 500-hour registered yoga teacher, offering yoga classes in addition to incorporating techniques for maintaining physical and mental wellness into her music pedagogy. Adella’s primary teachers are Christopher Howard, Andy Hudson, and Anthony Taylor.

Adella earned her Master of Music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance from Eastern Connecticut State University, graduating summa cum laude from the University Honors Program. As a student at UNCG, Adella was principal clarinetist of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, a Student Manager in the Harold Schiffman Music Library, the Ensemble Manager for the School of Music, and an intern for the Raleigh-based ensemble earspace. During her time at Eastern, Adella won the New England Intercollegiate Band Festival Solo Competition as well as receiving multiple awards from the music department and university, including the 2019 Undergraduate Creative Activity Fellowship, and the 2020 Outstanding Honors Thesis Award for her project, “Leonard Bernstein and the Twentieth Century Crisis of Faith.”

Adella has spent summers at Brevard Music Center and the Philadelphia International Music Festival, studying with Steve Cohen and Ricardo Morales, and interning for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s Talcott Mountain Music Festival and the International Clarinet Association.