Joe LaRocca, a native of Chicago Illinois, is a dynamic multi-wind player highly skilled on flute, piccolo, clarinet, saxophone, recorder, bagpipes, pan flute, dizi, bansuri, ocarina, tin whistle, and electronic wind instruments, with symphonic, theatrical, and improvisatory experience. His diverse repertoire reaches far beyond the realm of standard western concert music, spanning from rock to baroque. Joe has extensively studied and performed multiple idioms of world music and modern American music to include jazz, R&B/soul, Arabic classical, Latin Jazz, Brazilian, Venezuelan, Chinese, rock, Scottish highland, and Irish traditional music.
He has studied under and performed with renowned musicians in these idioms to include; Marco Granados, Ruben Alvarez, Omar Al-musfi, Issam Rafea, Issa Boulos, Kinan Abou-afach, Jui-Ching Wang, Jiaqi Li, John McGann, Patrick Cannady, Ron Bowen, John Christopher Paris, Harry Skoler, and others. Joe has performed for the Huntington Theater's production of The Lehman Trilogy as the onstage wind player providing soundscapes on multiple winds and electronic wind controller. He was formerly Reed 1 on the Jesus Christ Superstar 50th Anniversary National Tour performing on tenor sax, flute and clarinet, and sat reed 2 on Ogunquit Playhouse's production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. He is also formerly principal flutist of the DuBois Orchestra, the Belmont Festival Orchestra, and section flute in Boston Chamber Symphony, as well as a regular sub for a number of orchestras around Massachusetts. Joe has formerly served as Executive Director of the Du Bois Orchestra, an organization in Cambridge, MA that is dedicated to elevating the works of underrepresented composers into the canon of classical music.