#clarinetquartet

🎶 Tomorrow night Miguel del Aguila's #DISAGREE in #Seoul! Trio Con Spirito brings my clarinet quartet DISAGREE to life at the Sejong Cultural Center—an emotional ride for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Grateful to Kim Gun-joo, Jeong Jin-hee, Jeong Gwang-jun, and Jinyoung-seon for diving deep into this music’s tension and beauty. If you're in Seoul, don’t miss this one. August 29, 7:30pm.

The Voynich Manuscript for #clarinet #quartet! Search for the “reference” recording on YouTube, it’s totally great, and the crazy and weird Voynich Manuscript is a great hook for gamers and computer geeks. I’ve said it before, but imo the best original music for clarinet chamber ensemble is coming from Japan these days. I love how this piece blends minimalist techniques with a gorgeous middle choral section that takes full advantage of the clarinet’s nearly vocal sound and ability to blend. Working on the 1st part in winter is kind of hilarious though. It’s *constantly* going through clarion G# and throat G#/A#, keys which are notorious for getting clogged with moisture, so I can only work on it for like 10min before having to break down and clean the instrument. I’m sure it would be even worse back in Ohio. There is also a middle section (2nd picture) with a really tricky counting problem, various different-length triplets while the rest of the group is in 4. Super-fun piece, and it’s for 4xBb so I get to take a break from bass and play Bb! #clarinetquartet #clarinetproblems https://www.instagram.com/p/B79Ml32BTZO/?igshid=83c56v007faf

Blackwood Clarinet Ensemble in action at our informal friends & family concert. One of the pieces we played Yvonne Desportes' French Suite - she's a wonderful mid-20th Century French composer who wrote a number of pieces for clarinet quartet (4xBb). For whatever reason, some of the most prominent women composers (Joan Towers, Amy Beach) write very hard-to-listen-to (IMO) atonal music, but Desportes is totally approachable and fun to listen to and play - you can find this suite on YouTube. She was fairly prolific, with several hundred pieces including quite a few for interesting instrument combinations. She has a decent Wikipedia page. #clarinet #clarinetquartet #chambermusic