Early Years and Education
Stoltzman's father worked for the Western Pacific Railroad and moved his family to San Francisco, California, soon after Richard was born. Stoltzman's first exposure to music came through his father, an avid fan of big band music. Stoltzman's father played the big band music of the 1940s at home on the radio and performed in a dance band during his spare time. Stoltzman began studying the clarinet at the age of eight with a teacher at a local school, and he began playing with his father in the Stewart Memorial United Presbyterian Sunday School Orchestra and at community functions within a few years. When Stoltzman was in junior high school, he began developing the jazz techniques of improvisation and enjoyed jamming with his father at home. Benny Goodman was his earliest musical mentor, and remained a strong influence throughout his career. Stoltzman told Allan Kozinn of the New York Times, "(When) I was seven years old ... I found these wonderful cylindrical objects in a nice leather case. I enjoyed playing with them ... and I vaguely remember dangling them from the second-story window of our house. That caused quite a stir, because they turned out to be my father's clarinets. But instead of punishing me, he decided that I had an interest in the instrument and rented an indestructible metal clarinet for me to start on."
Stoltzman earned a Bachelor's Degree from Ohio State University with a double major in music and mathematics. He then studied with Professor Keith Wilson at the Yale School of Music, where he received the Master of Music degree. He worked toward a doctoral degree at Columbia University. He has been a longtime student of master clarinet pedagogue Kalmen Opperman of New York. Together, they founded the Clarinet Summit, a semi-regular international gathering of clarinetists which has taken place since the 1990s. He has also recorded with the Kalmen Opperman Clarinet Choir.
His ex-wife, Lucy Stoltzman, is a violinist, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri Quartet. They have two children, a son Peter and a daughter Meggie.
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