Recently arrived from Tel-Aviv, Israel, Elinor Rufeizen is a clarinet student of Franklin Cohen at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She served out her two year term in the Israeli Defense Forces Orchestra, touring as a soloist to Sofia, Bulgaria, Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, Hanover and Hamburg, Germany and NYC under the conductor Lt. Colonel Michael YaAran. Ms. Rufeizen played with the top five Israeli orchestras and was running her own Piazzolla quartet performing all over Israel. At the age of 15, Ms. Rufeizen was chosen as a recipient of ‘Outstanding Young Musicians Award’ from the Israeli Philharmonic. She is the winner of the prestigious scholarship given by the American-Israeli Cultural Foundation, 1st prize of the 2008 ‘Paul Ben-Haim’ Israeli Competition, the 2008 2nd prize of the ‘David Weber’ competition at the Jerusalem Academy and lately the winner of the 2009 Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition. Among her teachers were the principal clarinetist of the Israeli Philharmonic Ron Zalka and Eva Wasserman-Margolis.