Picture Show

Since his debut as a professional clarinetist in the early 1970s and as a current member of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Piazza has shared the concert stage and recorded with such artists as Zubin Mehta, Plácido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Barbra Streisand, Itzhak Perlman, Carlo Maria Giulini, Leonard Bernstein, Gustavo Dudamel, and James Conlon. In addition to nearly 1,000 performances with L.A. Opera and the Philharmonic at the Music Center, Disney Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl, he has also performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Théatre du Châtelet and the Palacio des Bellas Artes. In 1983, Piazza became chair of the Pierce College music department and soon founded the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds—an ensemble that would eventually perform throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Eastern China, as well as at the world-renowned Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. From 1976–2019 Piazza directed ensembles at the legendary Idyllwild Arts campus and, more recently, Piazza and the Winds were among the featured performers at the 2022 Association of Concert Bands conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.