Max Opferkuch was appointed Second Clarinet of the San Diego Symphony in May 2022. He has previously appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Opferkuch has performed with the Colburn Chamber Music Society, the Athenaeum Chamber Concert Series, Jacaranda Music, the South Bay Chamber Music Society, Music from Angel Fire and alongside members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra with the Mainly Mozart Festival.
Mr. Opferkuch was awarded Grand Prize in the 2019 Pasadena Showcase House Instrumental Competition and won the 2019 USC Thornton Concerto Competition, for which he appeared as a soloist with the Thornton Symphony. In 2020 he was featured as a Young Artist in Residence on Minnesota Public Radio’s Performance Today. He was a fellow at the 2019 and 2022 Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.
A San Diego native, Mr. Opferkuch studied with Theresa Tunnicliff of the San Diego Symphony before going on to earn his Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance from the USC Thornton School of Music (2020), where he was a student of Yehuda Gilad and Michele Zukovsky. He also spent a semester at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, studying with Harri Mäki and Olli Leppäniemi. At the time he joined the San Diego Symphony, he was pursuing graduate work with Yehuda Gilad at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles.