Kelsey Castellanos, Clarinet



Kelsey Castellanos joined the Sarasota Clarinet Trio in 2026. She currently holds the position of Second Clarinet in the Venice Symphony in Venice, Florida. She maintains an active career as both a performer and educator, and regularly appears with some of Florida's leading orchestras, including the Brevard Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Palm Beach Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, and Walt Disney World Orchestra.

Kelsey holds degrees from the Lynn Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music, and DePaul University. Her primary teachers have included Jon Manasse, Stephen Williamson, Julie DeRoche, and Phillip O. Paglialonga. When not performing, Kelsey enjoys playing tennis, cycling, and video games.

Michael Drapkin, Bass Clarinet



Michael Drapkin has enjoyed a career as a music performer, symphony orchestra clarinetist, composer, arranger, publisher, music retailer, educator, clinician and adjudicator. As a clarinetist, he was a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Principal and Bass Clarinet, New York City Opera Touring Company as Principal Clarinet and Lake George Opera Festival (now Opera Saratoga) as Principal Clarinet. Drapkin has performed with the New Jersey Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Portland Symphony, the Long Island Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and with conductors Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Michael Tilson Thomas, Neville Marriner, Leonard Slatkin, Lucas Foss, Christopher Keene, Klaus Tennstedt, Frederick Fennell, and many more celebrated orchestras and maestros. He has spent summers playing at Aspen and at Tanglewood as a Berkshire Music Center fellow, and was Solo Clarinetist and Executive Director of Music Amici, Rockland County, NY's oldest professional chamber music group and one of the finest in the New York City area, and performed with them in Carnegie Hall. Drapkin currently holds the position of bass clarinetist with the Mid-Texas Symphony. Each fall he is a music judge and chief judge at high school marching band contests around the country for US Bands, where he has judged local, regional, state and national contests in 8 states. He has also been concertmaster of five community concert bands. Mr. Drapkin is a Selmer Artist and performs on a beautifully restored Selmer-Paris Model 33 Low-C Bass Clarinet.

Mr. Drapkin is internationally known in the bass clarinet world as author of the Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet series - excerpt books Volumes One, Two and Three, and his transposed parts books Volumes Four and Five, which were tested in 53 professional orchestras in the US ranging from the New York Philharmonic to the San Francisco Symphony, and internationally in countries ranging from Italy to Iceland. His books have become standard literature among orchestral bass clarinetists worldwide and are distributed by Carl Fischer and sold at his ecommerce website at bassclarinet.net.

Drapkin founded and presented the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship (BCOME) for two summers at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, attracting as attendees professional musicians, industry professionals, college music faculty and deans from as far away as Singapore. For BCOME, he was awarded $100,000 in grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation - the nation's largest entrepreneurship foundation - and was one of their first music grantees ever. For his efforts with BCOME, Drapkin was a finalist for Best Non-Profit CEO for The Ten Awards - the "Academy Awards of New York Business," an annual selection of ten companies and individuals in the greater New York business community that display extraordinary leadership and innovation to improve their business. He has delivered keynote speeches, lectures and master classes across the U.S. including Eastman, Juilliard, Northwestern and Cal Arts near L.A., among others.

Drapkin served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Phil, which was the edgiest and most forward thinking arts-driving orchestra on the entire planet! Following the Wall Street adage of eat what you kill, Drapkin developed his own band Yiddish Cowboys in Austin, Texas, which released a CD on iTunes. He featured them in the Classical Crossover showcase he ran for South by Southwest in 2010 and 2011, where he brought bands from around the world that are classically trained and have crossed over to the mainstream and brought their virtuosity with them. Drapkin was an active scholarly member of the College Music Society, which represents college music faculty worldwide. He was appointed chair of their Careers Outside the Academy Committee three times for CMS, and led a pre-conference seminar on entrepreneurship for them in Atlanta. He also has been a member of the Board of Directors and a keynote speaker for their Southwest Chapter, and made presentations at the CMS National Conference annually for 13 years.

Michael Drapkin is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Stanley Hasty, toured Japan with the Eastman Wind Ensemble under Donald Hunsberger, and played Principal Clarinet in the Eastman Philharmonia under David Effron. He also studied clarinet with Gary Gray, Charles Bay and Harold Wright; klezmer with Sid Beckerman. In addition to Drapkin's seminal books for the bass clarinet, he has been a prolific composer/arranger. His Suite of Old Yiddish Melodies for concert band was premiered by the Wind Ensemble at the North Carolina School of the Arts, his John Dowland Suite for Band was premiered by the Manhattan Wind Ensemble, his Gershwin " Walking the Dog for clarinet and band was premiered by the Rockland County Concert Band, The Rabbi Chaplain's March was premiered by the Navy Band of the West and has performed his Tempest Hora with numerous bands. He also recently completed his Der Rosenkavalier Suite for Band and My Resting Place based on an old Yiddish song. Drapkin has been composing arrangements for two clarinets and bass clarinet since he was in college, and they span repertoire from orchestra, band, opera, marches and other genres, and have been published as two volumes across over 56 pieces, 12 books and 1400 pages of music. Michael's entire catalog is distributed by Theodore Presser worldwide.

John Fullam, Clarinet



John Fullam, former Principal Clarinetist of the Buffalo Philharmonic, was born in New York and holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a scholarship student of Joseph Allard, Principal Clarinetist of the Juilliard Concert Orchestra, and a soloist with the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. He also holds a Diploma from the Mozarteum Akademie in Salzburg, Austria. His other teachers include Leon Russianoff, Anthony Gigliotti, Peter Simenaur, Pasquale Cardillo, and Harold Wright.

Mr. Fullam has appeared as principal clarinetist and soloist at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with Eugene Ormandy, the Marlboro Festival with Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin, the Tanglewood Festival with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, the Roundtop Festival with Leon Fleisher, ArtPark with Frederica von Stade, Kleinhans Hall with Doc Severinsen and Marvin Hamlisch, the Amalfi Coast Festival with Nicolas Flagello, the Orquesta Municipal de Caracas with Astor Piazzolla, the Sebago Lake Festival, and the Pierre Monteux Domaine. He has also performed as soloist at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and with the London Festival Ballet.

Mr. Fullam won the international competition held at the Teatro La Fenice for the principal clarinet position of the International Symphony of Venice under Franco Ferrara. His honors also include the U.S. National Arts Club Award, the Bergen Philharmonic Concerto Competition, the Diploma d'Onore from the Italian Government, the Massachusetts State Concerto Competition, the C.D. Jackson Master Award, and the U.S. Components Inc. Fellowship Grant. He was selected as soloist for the Berkshire Festival of Contemporary Music under Gunther Schuller and was a featured artist and clinician for the Fourth National Clarinet Congress at the University of Massachusetts. As the recipient of several dedications, he has premiered concertos and other works written especially for him.

Mr. Fullam was selected to perform the solo clarinet part in the American premiere and first recording of Peter Maxwell Davies' chamber opera Le Jongleur de Notre Dame for the Mode label. He was also chosen for the Tanglewood Festival premiere of Francis Poulenc's Sonata for Two Clarinets.

Mr. Fullam is featured as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Amberg Chamber Ensemble on City of Light, released on the MarkMasters label, which includes major works for clarinet by distinguished American composer Persis Parshall Vehar and the live 2007 premiere performance of the City of Light Concerto, dedicated to Mr. Fullam. He can also be heard on the Marlboro Recording Society Series, Naxos, Masters, Pro Arte, Beau Fleuve, Asimetria, and Humboldt Cultural Association labels, and has appeared on National Public Radio and television in the United States, South America, and on Radio Hong Kong.

He has held principal and associate principal clarinet positions with the Band of America, the Caracas Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Boston Philharmonic, the Massachusetts Symphony, and the National Orchestral Association Orchestra, with whom he performed the Copland Clarinet Concerto under the composer's direction.

As a teacher, Mr. Fullam has served as Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music, Atlantic Union College, the University of Utah, and the Boston Conservatory, where he was also Director of Chamber Music.

He resides in Sarasota, Florida with his wife Lois, and they enjoy traveling together.

The Sarasota Clarinet Trio performs concerts, lecture demonstrations, and private events of all kinds. Please contact us at [email protected] or call 512-590-2544 to book an event.