Dr. Jeffrey Carwile

B.M. – M.M. – A.D. – D.M.A. 

Jeffrey Carwile was born in Winchester, Virginia to a family that knew little about music, though his mother could play piano by ear. After a failed attempt at playing the trombone in 7th grade, he saw a picture of a clarinet in the dictionary, and began teaching himself. He began formal study of the clarinet at West Virginia University with Dr. John Weigand, earning his Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance in 1987. He continued his studies with Dr. Frank Kowalsky at the Florida State University, earning a Master of Music in Performance and Pedagogy in 1989.  

During the .com bubble, Jeff moved to San Francisco and became Director of Information Technology for several successful start-up companies in Silicon Valley. During this period, he was principal clarinet with the San Jose Wind Symphony for over ten years, played many gigs with local orchestras, taught clarinet to hundreds of students, and was a founding member of the Ventos Wind Quintet.  

Jeff auditioned for the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 2005. He paused his technology career in 2006 to begin an Artist Diploma and Doctor of Musical Arts. While at CCM, Jeff studied with Ixi Chen and Richie Hawley. Jeff also mentored with Ronald Aufmann at Northern Kentucky University through the Preparing Future Faculty program at the University of Cincinnati. Jeff earned both his Artist Diploma in Chamber Music from CCM and his “Preparing Future Faculty” Fellow Certificate from UC in April 2011.

In Cincinnati, Jeff was an active orchestral and chamber musician; he has played with the Cincinnati Opera, the Cincinnati Ballet, the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, the Butler Philharmonic, the Fillmore Band, the Tri-State Chamber Players, the Miami Opera, the Springfield Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, and the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. In 2010, Jeff played Steve Reich's Pulitzer prize-winning Double Sextet with eighth blackbird at CCM and he is a long-standing member of Keith Brion’s “New Sousa Band,” which tours around the United States and went to eight destinations in China in early 2011. In 2012, Jeff also recorded Rick Sowash’s western-sounding “Images of Mt. Emily” for violin, clarinet, and piano, released as a CD entitled "Vistas”. 

In April of 2018, Jeff earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in clarinet performance with a cognate in music theory from the University of Cincinnati after finishing a lecture-recital on two chamber works for clarinet by Bohuslav Martinů.  Jeff is dedicated to the education of the next generation of clarinetists and his students have received numerous accolades in the Bay Area and the Cincinnati Tri-State. Jeff served as an Adjunct Professor of Clarinet at Northern Kentucky University, where he taught applied clarinet, chamber music, and aural skills for eight years. In 2017, Jeff began as a certificated full-time teacher at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in downtown Cincinnati, teaching music theory, aural skills, and clarinet.

In November 2018, Jeff moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area. He will be teaching lessons through C&L Music in Fremont, CA. 

Jeff is a member of the National Association of Music Education and the San Francisco Musician's Union, Local 6.