Introduction

Biography

Dale was the bro­ther of Er­nest Cle­ven­ger.

Principal horn of the Chi­ca­go Sym­pho­ny Orchestra (CSO) start­ing in Feb­ru­ary 1966, he was a ver­sa­tile mu­si­cian in ma­ny areas, in­clud­ing cham­ber mu­sic, jazz, com­mer­cial re­cord­ings, and so­los. His men­tors were Ar­nold Jacobs and Adolph Her­seth.

Before join­ing the CSO, Cle­ven­ger was a mem­ber of Leo­pold Sto­kow­ski’s Am­er­ican Sym­pho­ny Orc­hestra and the Sym­pho­ny of the Air, di­rect­ed by Al­fred Wall­ens­tein. He al­so was prin­ci­pal horn of the Kan­sas Ci­ty Phil­har­mo­nic.

He ap­peared as so­lo­ist with or­ches­tras world­wide, in­clud­ing the Ber­lin Phil­har­mo­nic Or­ches­tra un­der Da­ni­el Bar­en­boim. He pa­rt­ici­pat­ed in ma­ny mu­sic fes­ti­vals, in­clud­ing the San­ta Fe (New Mex­ico) Cham­ber Mu­sic Fes­tiv­al, the Flo­ri­da Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in Sa­ra­so­ta, the Mar­row­stone Mu­sic Fes­tiv­al in Bell­ing­ham, Wash­ing­ton, the Af­fi­nis Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in Ja­pan, and the Je­ru­sa­lem In­ter­na­tion­al Cham­ber Mu­sic Festival.

In addition, he worked with the Eu­ro­pe­an Com­mu­ni­ty Youth Or­ches­tra un­der Clau­dio Ab­ba­do, and par­ti­ci­pat­ed in sev­er­al In­ter­na­tion­al Horn So­cie­ty work­shops.

He gave re­cit­als and mas­ter class­es through­out the world: It­aly, Spain, Ger­ma­ny, Bel­gi­um, Aus­tria, Swit­zer­land, Fin­land, Nor­way, Ja­pan, Chi­na, Aus­tra­lia, Mex­ico, Ca­na­da, and Is­ra­el.

Clevenger was the fea­tured so­lo­ist on se­ver­al CSO re­cord­ings, in­clud­ing works by Mar­tin, Schu­mann, Brit­ten, and Mo­zart.

He al­so played on the Gram­my Award win­ning re­cord­ing The An­ti­pho­nal Mu­sic of Ga­bri­eli with the brass en­sem­bles of the Chi­ca­go, Phi­la­del­phia, and Cleve­land or­ches­tras.

He has re­cord­ed the horn con­cer­tos by Jo­seph and Mi­chael Hay­dn with the Franz Liszt Cham­ber Or­ches­tra of Bu­da­pest, as well as all of Mo­zart’s horn con­cer­tos. The Mo­zart re­cord­ing was named Re­cord of the Year in Hun­ga­ry, and both re­cord­ings were nom­in­at­ed for Gram­my awards.

Clevenger al­so per­formed with Bar­en­boim and col­leagues from the CSO and the Ber­lin Phil­har­mo­nic in Chi­ca­go and Ber­lin on the Gram­my win­ning CD of quin­tets for pi­ano and winds by Mo­zart and Beet­ho­ven.

With Bar­en­bo­im and Itz­hak Per­lman, he re­corded Brahms’s Horn Trio for HD TV, las­er disc, and So­ny Clas­sic­al CD.

He per­formed on the Tri­bute to Ell­ing­ton CD with Bar­en­boim and oth­er mem­bers of the CSO, and re­cord­ed Strauss’s First Horn Con­cer­to with Bar­en­boim and the CSO. John Will­iams wrote a horn con­cer­to for him, which he pre­miered in 2004.

For sev­en­teen years, Cle­ven­ger played al­most re­gu­lar­ly with the group EARS, Jazz of All Eras. In 1985, he re­ceived an hon­or­ary doc­tor­ate from Elm­hurst Col­lege, Il­li­nois.

He taught at Roo­se­velt Uni­ver­si­ty, Chi­cago, where he was a pro­fess­or of horn.

A con­duct­or as well, Cle­ven­ger served as mu­sic di­rect­or of the Elm­hurst Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra for 14 years.

His con­duct­ing ca­reer in­clud­ed guest ap­pear­anc­es with nu­mer­ous oth­er or­ches­tras, in­clud­ing the New Ja­pan Phil­har­mo­nic, the Shang­hai Sym­ph­ony Or­ches­tra, the Ci­vic Or­ches­tra of Chi­ca­go, the Roo­se­velt Uni­ver­si­ty Symp­ho­ny Orc­hes­tra, the Tor­on­to Con­ser­va­to­ry Or­ches­tra, the Nort­hwest­ern Uni­ver­si­ty Sum­mer Sym­pho­ny, the West­ern Australia Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, the Osa­ka Phil­har­mo­nic, the Na­tion­al Phil­har­mo­nic of Slo­va­kia in Bra­ti­sla­va, the Sin­fo­nia Cra­ko­via and the Opole Phil­ha­rmo­nic in Po­land, and the Bar­tle­sville (Ok­la­ho­ma) Sym­pho­ny Or­che­stra.