School of Music Faculty

Sunshine Simmons

Associate Professor, Clarinet

Dr. Sunshine Simmons is the Associate Clarinet Professor at the University of North Florida. Her various orchestral positions have included Principal Clarinet with Oregon Ballet Theatre, E-flat Clarinet of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and Bass Clarinet with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Quad City Symphony, and South Bend Symphony. She has been heard on the stages performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera and Lyric Opera Orchestra. Chamber music activities have involved collaborations with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, eighth blackbird, International Chamber Artists, Santa Fe New Music and Chatter as well as St Lawrence String Quartet at Stanford University. She has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Ravinia Festival, and the St. Augustine Music Festival. A featured artist in the Chicago based Dame Myra Hess Concert series, Simmons has also performed the Chicago premiere of Alan Shulman’s Rendezvous for Clarinet and String Orchestra.

Internationally, she has been a soloist at the Frutillar Music Festival in Chile, performed a live radio broadcast of Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto in Cluj, Romania, collaborated in a chamber music performance with the Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan, and was a recitalist in Belgium through the International Clarinet Association. She has been a guest lecturer at Arizona State University, Ball State University, University of Ohio and given masterclasses in throughout the United States. In addition to a number of orchestral recordings, Simmons can be most recently heard on the CD titled Discovery: Recital Music for Bass Clarinet and Piano. Simmons holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern University and is a Buffet Crampon and D'Addario Artist.

Contact: (904) 620-1757 | sunshine.simmons@unf.edu