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Pru Whittaker

A clarinetist who began to play the instrument at an early age; passing grade five by age eleven and gaining her ARCM diploma at seventeen. She became principal clarinet of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at seventeen, and was one of the founder members of the BBC Training Orchestra when she was eighteen. At twenty, she became principal clarinet of the BBC N.Ireland Orchestra, and a year later took up the same position in the BBC Welsh Orchestra. When she was twenty-six, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra invited Whittaker to become its Associate-Principal clarinet; and the only woman in the orchestra at that time. A couple of years later, she was promoted to Principal, and remained with the orchestra for the next twenty-three years until leaving in 1998. She now teaches the clarinet at Lancing College and at home.