Biography
Jana Starling
A native of Brandon, Manitoba, Dr. Jana Starling holds DMA and MMus degrees in Clarinet Performance from Arizona State University and a 5-year Bachelor of Music Education degree from Brandon University. During her formative education at BU she was a busy solo and ensemble performer, playing saxophone in jazz ensembles and clarinet in the E-Gré Winds, a touring scholarship woodwind quintet. Starling was a finalist at the CIBC Canadian National Music Festival (1994) and she also spent several summers as a clarinettist with the Band of the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa (1992-94).
After graduating from BU with gold and silver medals of achievement, Starling gained experience as a middle school jazz band director before heading south to hone her clarinet performance skills with Robert Spring at Arizona State. Upon finishing her Master's degree at ASU, Dr. Starling returned to Manitoba to accept a one-year sessional appointment teaching clarinet at Brandon University (1997/98). She subsequently spent two years teaching woodwinds and instrumental ensembles in the wilds of Paraguay, South America. After these adventures abroad, she returned to Winnipeg and worked as a private instructor, clinician, adjudicator, and freelance performer. In 2003, Starling returned to Arizona State University to enter the DMA program in clarinet performance and to explore her research interests in music education. She completed the doctorate in 2005 with a paper examining comprehensive musicianship in intermediate-level clarinet pedagogy.
Dr. Starling studied clarinet with Robert Spring, Ron Goddard and Eddy Vanoosthuyse, and was a participant at the 2004 Belgian Clarinet Academy in Oostende, Belgium. An avid New Music enthusiast, she has performed with the Winnipeg new music series Groundswell and Crossing 32nd Street, a professional contemporary ensemble in Phoenix, AZ. She appeared as a featured soloist with the Brandon Youth Band (1995), Arizona State Symphonic Orchestra (1997), the Municipal Chamber Orchestra of Asuncion, Paraguay (1999, 2000), and the Paraguayan National Symphony Orchestra (2000, 2002). Starling was a clarinet teaching assistant at Arizona State University for four years, has been an active public school clarinet clinician in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, and Arizona, and has collaborated with Canadian composers on new works for the intermediate clarinetist. Her diverse musical interests have allowed her to work in a variety of musical settings, including Mexican mariachi bands, international folk dance groups, and East Indian classical music ensembles, touring in Canada with Ananda Balasubramaniam and in the US with Sandip Burman.