Christian Schubert has been the second clarinetist of the Houston Symphony since 1996 when he was appointed by Music Director Christoph Eschenbach. A native of Burbank, CA, he studied at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, where he received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music performance. His principal teachers have been Kalman Bloch, Robert Marcellus and Larry Combs.
Prior to arriving in Houston, Christian played with numerous Chicago-area ensembles, including the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, Grant Park Music Festival, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival Orchestra and The Chicago Ensemble. As a teacher, he has in the past served on the music faculties of North Park University in Chicago and the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. Currently, he maintains a private teaching studio in Pearland.
In his time away from teaching and performing, Christian owns and operates a recording engineering company, Schubert Recording Services, specializing in the quality digital recording of classical music. In his time away from work, he is the devoted father of two young daughters.
What inspired you to become a musician?
According to my dad, my mom listened to a lot of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw while she was pregnant. About a month before she delivered me, she said her baby was going to play the clarinet someday. Somehow, I never heard that story until I had already won my position in the Houston Symphony. It’s a good thing, though, because the pressure would have been even higher to win this position, my dream job for sure!
Actually, my mom never pushed the clarinet. I started on piano, but in fifth grade I had to pick a band instrument in school. I wanted to play saxophone, but my best friend’s dad (who had played multiple woodwinds in the Looney Tunes studio orchestras) said I should start on clarinet and switch to saxophone later. To this day, I’ve never even picked up a saxophone—the clarinet is definitely ‘my voice.’
What upcoming Houston Symphony concerts are you most looking forward to performing?
I’ve been looking forward to playing the entire score to Star Wars: A New Hope my entire career. I fell in love with this music in the movie theater when I was in elementary school. Of course, I asked my parents to let me purchase the LP records on the way home from seeing the movie. When John Williams came to conduct the Houston Symphony in 2013, I brought in all three of my Star Wars soundtrack LP sets, and he signed them during a rehearsal break. He couldn’t have been more gracious. He said orchestra players all over the world had brought those same sets for him to sign, and that many had told him that those soundtracks provided their first motivation to become orchestra musicians. That was certainly true for me!
What hobbies and interests do you have outside of music?
I have discovered that cooking is my go-to source for stress relief! I absolutely love to work with the highest quality ingredients I can find, and in almost all cases, I literally know my rancher and my farmer. My two daughters and I enjoy cooking together every night. With all the things that can be shelved or put aside in a day, the evening meal together with the three of us never gets sacrificed—it is the best part of each day.
Christian Schubert is sponsored by Mariglyn and Stephen Glenn.
