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By admin, January 18, 2012

At the end of last year’s performance season, in May of 2011, the members of the Madera Wind Quintet began tossing around the idea of doing a call for scores.  We had just performed a new work commissioned by Sarah Summar and had such a great time doing it, and we had already performed much of the standard quintet literature.  After some discussion, we decided to search for more new quintet works to perform and by July had announced our 2012 Call for Scores. Phase 1 was complete.

Phase 2, organizing all the data from submissions we received and deciding the winners, was more difficult and time-consuming than any of us had imagined!  Rather than two weeks (as we initially scheduled), it took over two months to finish the process.  At the end of it all, we are extremely happy with the winners and can’t wait to perform these works! (Go here to view the list of winners.)

Personally, I learned a great deal from this process.

First, I found out that if you don’t have an entry fee or any limitations on age, nationality, or performance history of the piece, you are bound to get a LOT of submissions!  In our case this was good, as it gave us a lot to choose from, but it also meant we got a lot more bad pieces submitted.

Second, I learned that there is such a thing as “good music” and “bad music,” and it can be universally agreed upon (at least within our group of five).  We all refined our score-reading skills and had great discussions about what we wanted from a quintet piece.  I was surprised (shocked, actually) that there was so little disagreement over which works to eliminate from our consideration and which works eventually emerged as our winners.  It helps that we have been playing together in some form since 2008, and 1.5 years now with the same personnel.  Several of us have quite a bit of experience with new music and helped to guide the discussions.  But mostly we trusted our ears, had a few beers, and worked at it until the job was done!

Third, I learned that there is a lot of great music out there that is undeservedly languishing in obscurity after one or two performances.  Many groups purposefully seek out premieres, requiring that the pieces submitted to their call have never been performed.  We chose not to do this, and in the end we found that all of our selected scores had been performed previously.  It makes sense; most professional composers write with an ensemble in mind or a performance already scheduled.  I am excited that we can bring more attention to the five pieces we chose through our spring performances and upcoming recording project, and hopefully inspire other groups to perform them in the future.

So far our Call for Scores has been an incredible experience, and I highly encourage other performers and ensembles to consider doing such a project.  We now enter Phase 3: Practice and Rehearse!

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By admin, March 19, 2011

I’m excited to announce that my research presentation was chosen for the International Clarinet Association’s Research Competition, so I will be presenting this August at the 2011 ClarinetFest at California State University–Northridge!  The presentation is titled “Interactive Music for Clarinet and Computer: Performance Practice Problems and Solutions” and is based on my dissertation research on interactive music.

In celebration of being selected for the ICA Research Competition, as well as submitting the final revisions of my dissertation today, I decided to create a new “Research” page for my website where I can share the results of this and other research projects.  I will wait to post the full text of my dissertation document until it has officially been approved and published, but I have posted the listing of interactive works for clarinet and computer that I created as part of this project.  Enjoy!

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By admin, February 10, 2011

I’m excited to be performing L. Scott Price’s Crystalline Vapor for clarinet and computer for the second time, on Monday, February 21 as part of the “Centerpieces” concert series, hosted by the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI) at the University of North Texas.  Here is a recording of the premiere performance at the Dallas Festival of Modern Music last November:

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Crystalline Vapor is all about timbre.  As Scott explains, “the clarinet’s unique timbre – from crystalline clarity to warm airiness – provides the musical and sonic basis of this work.”  As such, I found this piece to be quite a challenge in two primary ways.

First, the concept of thinking timbrally is different from the mindset I am usually in as a clarinetist.  I work hard each day to find a consistent and beautiful sound–but in playing new music I am constantly reminded that that is not the only sound through which the clarinet can be musically expressive.  So, I spent a lot of time trying to understand what types of sounds Scott was wanting to hear with the timbral trills, flutter-tonguing and multiphonics, and how the computer extended and added to those sounds.  I was initially struck by the many exciting moments and unique sounds, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how to connect these moments and work with the pacing to enhance the cohesiveness of the work as a whole.

Second, I had to work on the various techniques needed to create these sounds.  For each timbral trill or inflection, I selected a fingering, often presenting the composer with several and asking which he preferred.  We came to a consensus that the difference in timbre was the most important aspect of the trills, so I felt free to vary the pitch up to a quarter-tone in order to create an audible timbre trill.  The multiphonics were insanely difficult and unreliable, even though Scott’s initial choices were based on sessions where we sat down together and tried out multiphonic fingerings.  Because the piece calls for multiphonic trills and slurs, and rapid switches from technical passages to multiphonics, I had to make quite a few substitutions (with the composer’s approval) in order to make those passages reliable enough for performance.  For both the timbre trill and multiphonic fingerings, I used Rehfeldt’s New Directions for Clarinet and Richards’ The Twenty-First Century Clarinetist as a jumping-off point, but often experimented with adding a finger here or opening a key there to find the sound and control that I wanted.  All this is not to mention the difficulties of executing a timbral trill during a glissando, or flutter-tonguing in the altissimo register, or transitioning gradually from air sound to tone and back.

But although the piece was quite intimidating at first, it feels much more comfortable coming back to it the second time.  I am reminded again why I enjoy collaborating with composers to perform new music – one reason being that they constantly challenge me to do things with the clarinet that I never thought I could do.  This is why, when composers ask me what techniques I “specialize” in, I don’t like to immediately pull out my “bag of tricks,” but instead encourage them to first describe the sound they want or the notation they envision, and let me try to do it.  With an instrument as rich with timbral possibilities as the clarinet, I am often surprised by what I actually can do, once I work at it.  Then, my task becomes to incorporate the new technique so well that for the listener, the focus is not on the technique, but on the sound itself.

Please visit L. Scott Price’s website to learn more about him and listen to some of his other works.