Deborah Bish is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Florida State University. Before moving to Tallahassee in 2001, she served as the professor of clarinet at Henderson State University. She has performed with orchestras throughout the United States, including the Arizona Opera (most notably in a production of the Ring Cycle), the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra under the direction of Jeffrey Siegel, the Phoenix Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Arkansas Symphony. Currently, she performs with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra.

She has been featured as a recitalist, clinician, and chamber musician at several prestigious festivals and conventions including a performance at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall (2004), the International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFest in Salt Lake City, Utah (2003), the College Band Director’s National Association Convention in Atlanta, Georgia (2002), the Florida Music Educator’s Association Convention in Tampa, Florida (2001 and 2003), the Wallowa Lake Chamber Music Festival in Enterprise, Oregon (2002), and at the Musikschule Bregenz, in Bregenz, Austria (2003).

Bish is very active in the commission, research, and performance of new works. Her current projects include an upcoming recording of the works of Gregory Wanamaker, including a piece written for her by Wanamaker titled clarikinetics, and a biography of clarinetist and composer William O. Smith.

Her biography appears in the twenty-fourth edition of the Marquis Who's Who of American Women and the 2004 edition of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. She has served as an adjudicator in several competitions, including both the Young Artist’s Competition and the High School Competition for the International Clarinet Association. Bish holds degrees from Arizona State University, where she studied under Robert Spring, and Florida State University, where she studied under Frank Kowalsky.