Nicholas Cox's recording of the Mozart Concerto and Quintet (ClassCD 1502) was released on the RLPOLive label in 2003. It has since been bradcast regularly on Classic FM. His latest recording of Richard Stauss's Duet Concertino on a Strauss double album with the RLPO under Gerard Schwarz was released in June 2005 on the Avie record label.
Other recordings include the Sonatas by Brahms and Reger (United:Cala 88012) and works for Clarinet by Bliss, Rawsthorne and Routh (Redcliffe 010). Future recording plans include a CD of British Music including several commissions for Redcliffe Records.

After reading music at Cambridge he studied clarinet with Hans Deinzer at the Musikhochschule in Hanover. He won First Prize at the 1984 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition in London and 2nd prize at the 1987 Jeunesses Musicales International Competition. He completed his studies at the Aspen Music School in Colorado.

Appointed Principal Clarinet of the RLPO in 1992, he has played guest principal with most British orchestras and concertos with the City of London Sinfonia, NDR Radio and Prague Symphony Orchestra in addition to several with the RLPO.

As a soloist he has appeared at the Wigmore and QEH, and Edinburgh, Cheltenham Huddersfield and Brighton Festivals. As a chamber musician he has worked with the Brodsky, Skampa, Medici, Chillingirian and Endellion Quartets.

In 1999 he gave the première of the Clarinet Concerto by Adam Gorb. His other commissions include works by Hugh Wood, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Jonathan Lloyd, Francis Routh, David Horne and Andrei Eshpai.

He is Senior Tutor Clarinet at the RNCM in Manchester. In May 2006 his pupil Mark Simpson from the Junior RNCM became the first musician to win both BBC Young Musician and BBC Young Composer titles.
from 1997 - 2002 Nicholas co-founded and ran Ensemble 10/10, the Liverpool new music group. Since 1997 he has also helped to re-establish the highly successful series of professional chamber concerts in Liverpool as Artistic Adviser of the Rodewald Concert Society.
Nicholas and the Chillingirian Quartet gave the premiere of the new Clarinet Quintet by Hugh Wood in November 2007 commissioned by the Rodewald Society.
In addition to his playing and teaching, Nicholas is an active researcher recently editing 3 Sonatas by Francois Devienne for Edition HH. The first of these has been adopted as a set work in the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music Grade VIII syllabus.

Discography:

• Brahms Sonata Op.120 No.1 & Reger Sonata Op.107 with Vanessa Latarche piano (UNITED 88012 issued April 1994). Tracks selected on Classic FM CD of "Great Wind Music"
• Bliss, Rawsthorne & Routh Clarinet Quintets with members of the Redcliffe Ensemble (REDCLIFFE 010 issued January 1996)
• Mozart (Concerto, Quintet, Adagio K 580a) Conductor Roy Goodman: RLPO Live issued May 2003 (CLASSCD 1502 - CD of the week on Classic FM)
• Richard Strauss, Duet Concertino with Alan Pendlebury bassoon RLPO Conductor Gerard Schwarz (issued May 2006 on AVIE AV2071)
• Humphrey Proctor Gregg Sonata for Clarinet and Piano with Ian Buckle piano (first recording issued May 2006 on DUTTON CDLX 7165)

Nicholas Cox - Clarinet - Critical Reviews

"Truly lovely playing."
Stephen Johnson The Independent

"Superb playing."
The Gramophone

"What became increasingly - and ever more enthrallingly apparent as the recital unfolded was that the clarinettist Nicholas Cox and his pianist Vanessa Latarche not only have catholic tastes but also possess the technical accomplishment, stylistic insight and interpretative discernment...both artists bring to their performance an assured and deeply engrained musicality...Their playing was marked by close rapport and an ideal balance of temperaments, each musician as acute as the other in entering instantly and thoroughly into the composer's individual worlds of sound.
An exhilarating evening & a duo to watch. "
Geoffrey Norris - Daily Telegraph

"The ideal Mozart experience lay in Nicholas Cox's playing of the Clarinet Concerto on the darker-toned basset clarinet. The result was exquisite and as good as anything in the present recording catalogue. Wonderful, mellifluous, apparently effortless playing of the type an audience can dream of, but so rarely gets to such a degree. A combination of perfect intonation and phrasing to make the spine tingle. "
Joe Riley - Liverpool Echo

"A fusion of the art of the entertainer with the skill of th deeply serious musician...Nicholas Cox's imaginative musicianship is revealed in unusually close focussed and widely modulated breath control: it can draw from the clarinet a near percussive tension for Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie, or create a remarkable resilience of line in Weber's Grand Duo Concertante."
Hilary Finch - The Times

"Any woodwind player who can sing through his instrument as though it represents an extension of his musical personality is clearly one of some consequence. Nicholas Cox can and is."
Robert Cockcroft - Yorkshire Post

"Phil Principals Nicholas Cox, who simply produces the most sumptuous clarinet sound imaginable, and Alan Pendlebury(bassoon) combined for an enchanting reading of Strauss's Duet Concertino."
Joe Riley - Liverpool Echo

"Quite why the Bliss Quintet should have received only two recordings in recent years is something of a mystery to me, as the quality of this lovely rhapsodic work is extremely high indeed. The intricately spun melodies of the first movement are here beautifully rendered by Nicholas Cox and the Redcliffe Ensemble and the elegiac slow movement is most movingly delivered too.
Alan Rawsthorne's most astringent Clarinet Quartet of 1946 strikes me as very fine and a worthwhile discovery also. Although it displays a clear debt to Viennese serialism its lyrical qualities are exceptionally strong and it is by no means an unapproachable piece. Francis Routh's five movement Clarinet Quintet was composed in 1994, but in a stylistic sense could easily be contemporary with or even earlier than, the Rawsthorne. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant and finely crafted work which here receives a spirited reading from its dedicatee, Nicholas Cox. The recorded sound is very natural indeed."
The Gramophone: November 1996

Gis & Events

April 10th 2008 1pm
Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall University of Manchester
Nicholas Cox Clarinet David Fanning Piano
Brahms Sonata in E flat Op.120 No2
Berg Four Pieces
Weinberg Sonata

April 12th 2008 West Dean Chichester 10.30-4
Hugh Wood Clarinet Quintet Op 53 2nd Performance of this recent and hauntingly beautiful work in workshop with the Chillingirian String Quartet.

April 13th 2008 6.30pm
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square London WC1
Tickets £10
Chillingirian String Quartet with Nicholas Cox Clarinet
Beethoven Quartet in F Op 135
Hugh Wood Clarinet Quintet Op.53 London Premiere
Mozart Clarinet Quintet K 581

May 8th 2008 1pm Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Nicholas Cox Clarinet David Fanning Piano
Brahms Sonata in E flat Op.120 No2
Berg Four Pieces
Weinberg Sonata