Clarinetist/bass clarinetist Liz Player has performed with The Harlem Chamber Players, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble du Monde, New York City Housing Symphony Orchestra, Harlem Symphony Orchestra, The Manchester Music Festival Orchestra, The Bronx Opera, and on Broadway's Finian's Rainbow. As an avid lover of chamber music, Ms. Player has organized recitals and chamber music concerts in New Jersey and New York since 1990. She founded West Harlem Winds in 2004 and in 2008, with the help of the late violist Charles Dalton, started the acclaimed Music at St. Mary's chamber music series with The Harlem Chamber Players.

Liz is the daughter of a first-generation Korean mother and Black father, both of whom came from very low-income families. In 1976, at the age of 11, Liz experienced the sudden and tragic loss of her younger brother Kenny which changed her and her family’s life forever. Liz became withdrawn from the world around her. Soon after, she began journaling and took up playing the clarinet, two practices which helped her heal. Music became her solace and her passion.

Growing up, Liz always felt like she did not quite fit in and found herself drawn to others like her who felt excluded. She was inspired by the work of the late Janet Wolfe who had founded The NYC Housing Symphony Orchestra, which provided opportunities for mostly Black and Latinx classically-trained musicians. She wanted to create something that would welcome people of all types, including those who have felt like misfits in this society. Liz founded The Harlem Chamber Players as a way to bring together musicians and artists from all different races, cultures, and backgrounds, while being intentional to center Black and Brown professional musicians in the classical music arena.

As the executive and artistic director of The Harlem Chamber Players, Liz led the organization through its incorporation as a non-profit, and with the help of partner and associate director Carl Jackson, built the non-profit from the ground up to one that has been mentioned and garnered positive reviews in The New York Times, Seen and Heard International, “Here and Now” on ABC, on NBC, Ebony Magazine, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal, among numerous other media. Liz has also contracted chamber ensembles and orchestras for several other organizations, such as The Town Hall, The Met Museum for their ETHEL Series, Columbia University, Harlem Opera Theater, the Death of Classical series, the Caramoor Music Festival, and for Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran’s 2019 production Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration. Under her leadership, The Harlem Chamber Players was presented with the 2022 Sam Miller Award for the Performing Arts by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Liz was named among one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America in 2022.

She attended the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College as a Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellow and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor in Music. There she made her debut as soloist with the Queens College Orchestra in a performance of the Debussy Première Rhapsodie. She also appeared as a featured soloist with the Greenwich Village Orchestra in a performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and as a guest artist with Ensemble du Monde in a performance of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and strings. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, CAMI Hall, Merkin Concert Hall and Brooklyn’s Forecast Music. Former instructors and master class coaches include David Krakauer, David Glazer, William Blount, Ayako Neidich, Stanley Drucker, and Ronald Roseman.