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Dr. Timothy Bonenfant

Professor Music

Experience

Dr. Timothy Bonenfant is Associate Professor of Clarinet and Saxophone at Angelo State University where he also directs the ASU Jazz Ensemble and teaches Survey of Rock and Roll. He is a member of The Mesquite Trio and The Batik Quartet.

A native of Annapolis, MD, Bonenfant received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While at UNLV, he performed with the Las Vegas Symphony Orchestra and the famed UNLV Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Frank Gagliardi. During his time with the jazz ensemble, the band played with Joe Williams, Don Menza, Louis Bellson, Chuck Findley, Marlena Shaw and Carl Fontana

Bonenfant also holds a master’s degree from the California Institute of the Arts, where he worked with John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Milton Babbitt, Luciano Berio, John Cage, Paul Dresher, Morton Feldman, Steven Horowitz, Stephen Mosko, Mel Powell, Steve Reich and Frederic Rzewski.

Bonenfant holds the distinction as being the first student to earn the DMA degree in Clarinet Performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In 2004, he won the UNLV Concerto Competition, which resulted his performance of Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsody.

He is a former member of the Nevada Symphony Orchestra and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He has also worked with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Abilene Philharmonic, the San Angelo Symphony Orchestra, the Boise Symphony Orchestra, the Nevada Opera Theater, and with various musical groups on the Las Vegas Strip. His professional experience also includes playing with such notable performers as Luciano Pavorotti, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church, Theodore Bikel, John Duykers, Marvin Hamlisch, Tommy Tune, Dudley Moore, David Foster, Sandi Patty, Rip Taylor, the Village People and the Moody Blues.

A strong advocate of new music, his album of Baley’s works Multiple Personae: the family of clarinets, was released in August of 2014. He was a featured performer at the International Clarinet Associations Clarinetfest 2011 on Northridge, CA, and presented a paper on Baley’s works for contrabass clarinet at the iCA Clarinetfest 2013 in Assisi, Italy. In Assisi, he also performed with the European Clarinet Alliance.

He has performed on three additional recordings. Two of these feature him playing works written especially for him, which include “The Evening News” by Steven Horowitz (the composer of the soundtrack to “Super Size Me”) and “Wind Songs” by Las Vegas based composer Walter Blanton. In the jazz realm, he performed on bass clarinet as part of Blanton’s CD “Voyage From The Past.”

Bonenfant’s major teachers included Alberto Asercion, Felix Viscuglia, William Powell, Raphael Sanders, Marina Sturm, Michael Limoli and Michele Zukovsky. In his free time, he plays with the Fort Concho Enterprise, a 19th century-era baseball team based in San Angelo, Texas.