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Kathy Williams-Devries is an international award winning clarnettist from Brisbane, Australia. Her first award was at the age of 12, winning the 12 and under section of the Queensland Clarinet and Saxophone Society Competition. She has since won all sections of the Qld Clarinet Society Competition, inlcuding the Open Section twice and was the first recipient of the Jenny Reuther Memorial Scholarship. Major awards she has won include second place in the International Clarinet Society Competition, Austalian Music Foundation Award and Instrumental Finalist of the Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards.

Kathy trained at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, intially at Young Conservatorium, then as an undergraduate Bachelor of Music student. She completed her Bachelor of Music Performance in 1999. She was then accepted into the first intake of the Australian National Academy of Music Intensive Wind Program in early 2000. She then took up a year on exchange with the Royal College of Music. During this period, she was heavily influenced by the weekly singing masterclasses, and strives to 'sing' through her clarinet as much as possible.

She has been a soloist with the Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Harlow Symphony Orchestra.

Kathy is a firm believer in the healing power of natural therapies, and her CDs play in a number of clinics in Brisbane

Kathy plays on Buffet RC Prestige B flat and A clarinets, a Leblanc Espirit E flat clarinet, and an Amati C clarinet.

She plays on a Selmer C95 130 mouthpiece with BG Ligature and Vandoren V12 strength 4 reeds, though she has recently tried the Legere Signature Series 4 and 4 1/4 reeds and finds them excellent practice reeds.  She stores her reeds in a Vandoren Hygrocase. She uses a Neotech clarinet strap to support the instrument. Over the last year she has started using Backun Fatboy barrels on her regular and C clarinet, and is featured as part of the Backun Musical community http://backunmusical.com/artists/kathy-williams-devries/

Watch a video here where she explains what equipment and set up she uses

Follow me on Twitter! @kathywilliams76