Program Notes for Duo 35 Recital on Friday, June 10, 2016 at 7:30 pm in Arlington, Texas!

ClarinetMike says, “Hey DFW! Come to our recital!”

As previously posted (HERE) Saxophonist Todd Oxford and I will be playing our first concert of the summer on Friday, June 10, 2016 at the International Baptist Church of Arlington at 7:30 pm. Joining us on this recital will be pianist Janet Pummill. Duo 35 will also be performing in Austin, Texas and Lawrence, Kansas (ClarinetFest 2016) in August.

Duo 35 Recital Program Notes

Postcards from Silver Lake (2010) Mark Carlson (b. 1952)

Composer Mark Carlson‘s lyrical, emotionally powerful, and stylistically unique music has earned him the admiration of audiences and musicians throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. A versatile composer, his approximately 100 works include art songs, chamber music, choral music, concertos, other large ensemble works, and songs for musical theater.

The recipient of more than 50 commissions, he has been commissioned by the National Shrine in Washington, DC, and the New West Symphony, among other organizations, as well as by many individual musicians and private parties. One of his thirteen CDs, The Hall of Mirrors, was a winner of the Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Awards for 2001. His works Sueños y canciones, Intermezzo, Two Ballads, Sonata for Cello and Piano, For Those Silenced, On the Coming of War, and Night Music have all been released on CDs over the past few years.

A member of the music theory and composition faculty at UCLA for many years, he also taught for fifteen years at Santa Monica College and is active as a private teacher. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles chamber music ensemble Pacific Serenades. He recently retired as a flutist after a lifetime of performing primarily chamber music, much of which was written for him. His music is published by Yelton Rhodes Music, Pacific Serenades Music, C Swigart Music, Black Squirrel Music, and Thorpe Music.

Born in 1952 in Ft. Lewis, WA, Carlson grew up in California, attended the University of Redlands, graduated from CSU Fresno, and received MA and PhD degrees in composition from UCLA. His principal teachers were Alden Ashforth and Paul Reale (composition) and Roger Stevens (flute).

Postcards from Silver Lake was commissioned by clarinetist Gary Gray and premiered by him, along with saxophonist Douglas Masek and pianist Neal Stuhlberg.

“I have a long-standing friendship and composing relationship with Gary, having written my most-performed piece, The Hall of Mirrors, for him in 1990, as well as a half dozen others since.  All were written for performances by my chamber ensemble Pacific Serenades, so I was delighted that Gary asked me to write a piece all on his own, after he and Doug Masek had been discussing the need for music for this combination.

Every time I write a new piece, I sketch a plethora of ideas, and some of those end up on the cutting room floor—not necessarily because I don’t like them, but because they just don’t fit in.  Those that I especially like I save for future use.  And so it was with the melodic material for this piece: each movement is based on material I had originally sketched for other pieces.  Since these ideas all came from different times, and because they are quite diverse stylistically, they felt to me like sketches of my life, and so I imagined them as musical postcards sent from my home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.” – Mark Carlson

Celebratory (from Concerto) (2003) Charles Rochester Young (b. 1965 )                             
Charles Rochester Young has won high praises and honors for his work as a composer. His original compositions have been performed on 5 continents, in all 50 states, and in major halls of the US and Europe, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Thousands of known performances of his music have been heard around the globe. His works have been performed by members of most major orchestras in the US as well as some of the world’s foremost soloists and chamber ensembles. His works are widely published and recorded.

Dr. Young is a graduate of Baylor University and the University of Michigan. He held as his mentors Pulitzer-prize winner Leslie Bassett, Donald Sinta, Marianne Ploger, Bud Beyer and Keith Hill.  Dr. Young is the Coordinator of Musicianship and Director of the Computer Music Center at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. Previously, Dr. Young served on the faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Dr. Young is an active presenter, clinician and guest composer around the nation.

Young’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble was commissioned and premiered by saxophonist Donald Sinta and the University of Michigan Symphony Band in 2003. The piano reduction performed today was done by the composer.

“Donald Sinta is a very special person in my life, who has profoundly influenced and shaped me as a person, artist and teacher. Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble was written as a “thank you” to him, and as a celebration of his distinguished performing and teaching career.” – Charles Rochester Young

Talking Pictures (1984) Amy Quate (b. 1953)

Composer Amy Quate works in a wide variety of musical styles, forms, and media. Her career encompasses commissioned compositions, musical performing, computer music, computer graphics, audio and video technical work, and multi-media production. She has published both literary and musical compositions. For the Tenth World Saxophone Congress (September 1992, Pesaro, Italy), Professor Debra Richtmeyer, Vice President of the North American Saxophone Association, commissioned Ace of Swords, a work for alto saxophone, percussion and piano. Her instrumental compositions include an alto saxophone sonata commissioned for the Seventh World Saxophone Congress, Light of Sothis (1982, Leduc), Laguna Madre (1988, Leduc) for soprano saxophone, and several tuba solos published by CCP/Belwin.

In 1984, Amy Quate received the Grand Prize of the American Chamber Music Composition Competition for her soprano saxophone and clarinet suite, Talking Pictures, a piece commissioned for the grand opening of the Dallas Museum of Art. Quate’s university degrees are a Bachelor of Arts from Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, New York), and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of North Texas.

Nas-T (2012) Brian Rhodes (b. 1967)

Brian Rhodes was born in Arkansas where he taught instrumental music in an award-winning band program for nine years before moving on to become a Texas band director. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Central Arkansas at Conway where he received his Bachelor of Music Education Degree and where he studied saxophone with Dr. Jackie Lamar. He received his master’s degree in saxophone performance at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana where he studied saxophone with Rick Condit and composition with Keith Gates. He has published many works with Twin Towers Music Publications including accessible concert repertoire, concert marches, solos, and ensembles. Nas-T was recorded by Todd Oxford and released on his “Synaesthesia CD.”

Dark Chocolate (sinful) (from Truffles) (2010) James Grant (b. 1954)

For over three decades, James Grant has been commissioned by individuals, choruses, chamber ensembles and orchestras who have performed his music throughout the world. He is a past first-prize winner of the Louisville Orchestra competition for new orchestral music and, in 2002, was one of five American composers to win the Aaron Copland Award.

Grant’s colorful musical language is known by musicians and audiences for its honed craft and immediacy, and his ability to compose music appropriate to specific levels of experience has found him working with groups ranging from professional orchestras, choruses, solo recitalists, new music ensembles and ballet companies to community choruses, university choral and instrumental ensembles, and youth orchestras. His music is regularly programmed at music festivals, symposia, and clinics; and his desire to compose new music for a given repertoire and specific instrumentation has led to many successful consortium commissions, a concept championed by the composer.

A dual-citizen of the United States and Canada, Grant and his wife, fine-art photographer Elizabeth Siegfried, live and work in Oxtongue Lake, Ontario, Canada and Sarasota, Florida, USA.

“Slow Jazz.  Truffles are jazzy torch songs in the tradition of the passionate, tuneful ballads of the American 1940s and 50s. Truffles are “songs without words.” This version for clarinet and piano (2010) was commissioned by and dedicated to clarinetist William Helmers. The original Truffles was commissioned and premiered in 2001 by violist Michelle LaCourse, to whom this music is dedicated.” – James Grant

Concertpiece No. 2 (1833) Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Knödel gefallen mir sehr viel!

“Famous German composer Felix Mendelssohn was good friends with the skilled German clarinetist Heinrich Joseph Baermann and his son Carl Baermann, a fine clarinetist in his own right. It was a friendship built not only from shared musical interests and compatible personalities but also from the Baermann’s masterful skill as dumpling chefs -Mendelssohn could never resist a well-made dumpling! Around Christmas 1832, the Baermanns were in Berlin (then Mendelssohn’s home) for a series of performances, and Mendelssohn invited them over for an evening of dumplings. The Baermanns insisted on remuneration in the form of a piece of music for father and son to play together; thus Mendelssohn’s Concertpiece No. 1 in F major for clarinet, basset horn, and piano, Op. 113. The exchange — dumplings and strudel for music — was so successful and made both parties so happy that it was repeated a little while later: thus, more dumplings for Felix and the Concertpiece No. 2 in D minor for clarinet, basset horn, and piano, Op. 114 (January 1833), for the Baermanns!” – Description by Blair Johnston from allmusic.com.