Heritage Collection is a four-volume, 14-CD set spanning Drucker’s 65-year career.
NYU Steinhardt alumnus Jerome “Jerry” Bunke (PhD ’71, Music Performance and Composition: Performers) has recently completed the Heritage Collection. The culmination of a decade-long project for Bunke, this 14-CD archival set preserves the recorded legacy of Stanley Drucker, one of the most celebrated clarinetists in American history.
Stanley Drucker and Jerome Bunke (left to right)
Fellow clarinetist Bunke initially met Drucker as a teenager through a mutual connection. That introduction opened the door to mentorship, study, and immersion in Drucker’s musical world, from Bunke studying with Leon Russianoff, a legendary pedagogue who also taught Drucker, to observing Drucker’s rehearsals and turning pages for the virtuoso. Drucker and his wife, Naomi, even performed at Bunke’s wedding.
Throughout his 65-year career, Drucker performed prolifically—not only on major stages as the longtime principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic, but also in community venues such as libraries, houses of worship, and educational spaces. Many of these performances were recorded informally, never intended for commercial release.
In 2017, Bunke—who has built a parallel career in recording and production through his company Digital Force—offered to help Drucker digitize and preserve hundreds of these collected recordings. As Bunke worked through the material, he realized that this was not just an archive: it was a hidden treasure.
“The repertoire for the Heritage Collection features numerous recordings of live performances, which truly capture Stanley’s spontaneity,” said Bunke in an interview about the archival set for Liner Notes. “When listening to Stanley’s performances we hear clarinet playing and musicality that soar towards the heavens—that made Stanley a legend in his own time. Now he is a legend for all time.” Drucker passed away in 2022 at the age of 93.
Bunke’s interest in preservation and musical history can be traced back to his academic work at NYU Steinhardt: his dissertation included the reconstruction of a long-lost clarinet work by Karl Stamitz, a key figure in the development of the instrument in the late 1700s. As a student, Bunke rediscovered the score, believed destroyed during World War II, in a French library and brought it back to life through his performance with the NYU Orchestra at the Frederick Loewe Theatre.
Music isn’t intended to be isolated—I want to take the passion I feel about music and communicate it in other worlds.
Despite these passion projects preserving history, Bunke is very much a champion of contemporary music. Throughout his career—whether performing at Carnegie Hall, being on the Board of Directors of CRI Records, or producing and hosting chamber music broadcasts for WQXR-FM and PBS television, he has sought to connect music to broader audiences and contexts.
“Music isn’t intended to be isolated—I want to take the passion I feel about music and communicate it in other worlds,” says Bunke, who previously coached chamber music and taught in NYU Steinhardt’s Music Business program; he also served as a guest lecturer at NYU Tisch’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. “To be able to preserve Stanley’s work to be enjoyed for all time has been a very meaningful thing for me.”
Bunke earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in clarinet from The Juilliard School. His performances as a soloist and chamber musician include Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK, and the Yomiuri Symphony. He was the Principal Clarinetist of Opera Saratoga, the Martha Graham Dance Company and a founding member of The Ariel Ensemble. A recipient of a Ford Foundation Recording Grant, Bunke is a featured soloist on more than 15 albums. Later he was president of Boosey & Hawkes; chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Chamber Music Panel; and executive director of the Concert Artists Guild.
Through Digital Force, Bunke has been involved with a wide variety of recording and production projects, including The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, Kenny Barron, Marie Osmond, Yoko Ono, Dionne Warwick, Patti LuPone, NFL on FOX, NBC’s Olympic Broadcasts, and Broadway cast albums for The Book of Mormon, Frozen, Newsies, Movin’ Out, Spelling Bee, and Sunset Boulevard to name a few.
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