Sharon Kam is one of the world’s leading clarinet soloists and has been working with renowned orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Japan for over 20 years.
Mozart’s clarinet masterpieces have been an object of artistic focus for Ms. Kam since the beginning of her career. At the age of 16, she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in her orchestral debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta. A short time later, she performed the Clarinet Quintet with the Guarneri String Quartet in Carnegie Hall, New York.
As part of Mozart’s 250th birthday celebrations at the National Theatre in Prague, her interpretation of the Mozart concerto was televised live in 33 countries and is available on DVD. In the same year, she was able to realize her longtime dream of recording the Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet using the basset clarinet. Contributing to the widely praised disk were eminent string players Isabelle van Keulen, Ulrike-Anima Mathé, Volker Jacobsen and Gustav Rivinus, as well as the Haydn Philharmonie.
As a passionate chamber musician, Sharon Kam regularly works with artists such as Christian Tetzlaff, Enrico Pace, Julian Steckel, Leif Ove Andsnes, Antje Weithaas, Liza Ferschtman, Christian Poltera and the Jerusalem Quartet. She is a frequent guest at festivals in Schleswig-Holstein, Heimbach, Rheingau, Risør, Cork, Verbier, and Delft, as well as the Schubertiade festival.
An active performer of contemporary music, she has premiered many works, including Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto and Quartet and concertos by Herbert Willi (at the Salzburg Festival), Iván Erőd and Peter Ruzicka (at Donaueschingen).
In the 2024/25 season, Sharon Kam will be the artist-in-residence at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf and is looking forward to concerts with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexandre Bloch and Gregor Bühl, a play-lead performance with the Württembergische Kammerorchester, as well as chamber concerts with her long-time partners Liza Ferschtman, Enrico Pace, and Christian Poltéra, along with the Jerusalem Quartet. Other highlights of the season include return invitations to perform with the Stuttgart State Orchestra, the Essen Philharmonic, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Innsbruck Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
Sharon Kam feels at home in a variety of musical genres – from classical to modern music and jazz – a fact reflected in her diverse discography. She received the ECHO “Instrumentalist of the Year” award two times: in 1998, for her Weber recording with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and Kurt Masur, and in 2006, for her CD with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra featuring works by Spohr, Weber, Rossini and Mendelssohn. Her “American Classics” CD with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by her husband Gregor Bühl, was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize.
In 2013 she released a recording entitled “Opera!". This collaboration with the Württembergisches Kammerorchester, includes transcriptions of operatic arias ranging from Rossini and Puccini to Wolf-Ferrari, arranged for clarinet and chamber orchestra.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Max Reger's death in 2016, her chamber music partners from her Mozart recording rejoined to record the clarinet quintets by Reger and Brahms (Edel, October 2015).
Her trio album "Contrasts", which she recorded together with her long-term partners Ori Kam and Matan Porat, was immediately included after release on the best-of-list of the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In 2020, ORFEO International released her recording of clarinet concertos by Carl Maria von Weber and his contemporaries Karol Kurpiński and Bernhard Henrik Crusell, which she recorded together with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Gregor Bühl. In 2021, her recordings of Hindemith's Clarinet Concerto with the hr-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Daniel Cohen and Hindemith's Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano with Antje Weithaas, Julian Steckel, and Enrico Pace were released.
Since 2022, Sharon Kam has been working as a Professor of Clarinet at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.
Sharon Kam is a Buffet Crampon Artist and has always been playing the R13 model. Her mouthpiece is made by Peter Eaton, London.