Klarinet Archive - Posting 000378.txt from 1998/07

From: dap@-----. Paprocki)
Subj: [kl] ClarinetFest day by day
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 19:33:57 -0400

First, Jim Pyne and his staff did a fantastic job on the festival.
The festival for me was divided into halves; Before I played and
afterwards. Jim asked me to play the Wednesday before the conference so I
had to make sure I practiced 2-3 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday of the
festival. Thank you for the nice comments on the recital. The Sierra is
published by Subito Music Publishing, Inc. and distributed by Theodore
Presser.

Here are some of my highlights:
Tuesday: The Sean Osborn/Dan Gilbert concert was great. I heard that Sean
only had 2 1/2 hours to work with the accompanist. I loved Dan Gilbert's
sound and musicianship - wow!! The Leblanc trio (Eddie, Ricardo, & Larry)
was another highlight of the day. For supper I drove John Bruce Yeh and
some friends (including David Blumberg) to a Chinese restaurant in the
area. The meal was ordered in Chinese and I didn't know what was coming.
Whatever the plates were they were delicious. The Aspen faculty in
concert was a fine closer. I did talk to Bil Jackson and found out about
Dennis Smylie's accident. Later in the conference I heard from John
Cipolla that Dennis is doing much better.

Wednesday: I spent most of the day in the exhibit hall. Lunch was with my
good friend Ben Armato, David Dworkin, and Lyle Barkhymer. Lyle is the
main Bass clarinet with the Columbus Sym. and I'm the back up bass clarinet
with the CSO so Lyle and I don't work at the same time. I did catch the
Phillipe Berrod and Jean Marc Volta recital - great! The thing (among many
things) I remember most was there were some monster bass clarinetists
playing at this festival. Dinner was with my old friends Jeff Olson, Mel
Richards, Mario Estrada, and a new friend, Michele Gingras. More shop
talk. The basset horn talk/recital was informative (and at times
humorous). These early music guys have a sense of humor that is light
years ahead. Maybe it goes with (or comes from) the basset horns.

Thursday: THE DAY. This was my first time playing at a clarinet festival.
I was mainly worried that I would over sleep but with two alarm clocks and
my wife calling I did make the show. To all who came to the 8 AM concert
and missed that second cup of coffee - Thank You. Playing for other
clarinetist is the hardest thing. You don't know if they're sympathetic or
sitting there evaluating every note (well that B was "dark" but I would
have used a chromatic there). Thank you for all your good comments
afterwards. I was equally pleased by the number of you that liked the
piece and were going to get it. Sierra also wrote two clarinet, piano,
string trios, and a bass clarinet concerto. The evening concert was just
fantastic (all my thesaurus comes up with is fantastic and great). My
colleagues at the CSO, Robert (Woody) Jones and David Thomas played a
superb performance of the 1st mvt. of the Krommer double concerto. And the
Prinz concerto performed by Howard Klug was amazing - tone, technique, AND
musical playing. I loved the performance and the piece. And what can you
say about Ricardo. It doesn't get any better. Afterwards I asked Ricardo
if he lost weight to which he replied no I got a bigger suit! - Yes he did
loose a couple of pounds - a virtuoso with a sense of humor. Ricardo's
family was up from Cincinnati so no beer and pizza that night.

Friday: I did catch some of the 8 AM recital. Greg Barrett and Jonathan
Cohler sounded great. I had lunch with John Cipolla and learned about the
life of a Broadway musician. Did you know that some of the doublers in the
pit will show up pushing a shopping cart full of instruments. Also does
anyone have the piano parts to Baermann Vol 4 & 5? The afternoon recital
of Ricardo and Ed Palanker was great! Ed did a phenomenal job on the Bach
cello suites (what year was the bass cl. invented? these sound like they
were written for us). I talked lots of bass clarinet shop with Ed during
the conference. There really seems like there's a brotherhood of bass
clarinetists (BBC - is that taken?) I did see old friends from the U of
Wisconsin - Perry and Howard Karp. Dinner was with Peter Wright
(Jacksonville Sym), Allan Rosenfel (Charlotte Sym) and Gene Calvando
(Charlotte Sym). More shop talk, audition talk, goofy assistant conductor
talk, etc. I though Peter looked familiar and it turns out that I talked
to him when I was down in Jacksonville for an audition. The Buddy DeFranco
concert was just great.

Saturday: I caught 8 AM (how many days can I do on 5 hours sleep?) and
especially enjoyed Kimberly Cole doing the Stockhausen "In Freundschaft"
and Randy and Nora Paul doing the Ponchielli "Il Convegno". Again I got
sucked into the exhibit hall for a couple of hours talking to people and
testing bass clarinet reeds. I met Clake Fobes and tried some really nice
bass clarinet mouthpieces. Russ Dagon and Lawrie Bloom were in top form as
usual. You do know that Lawrie played on all (at least the bass cl. I'm
sure) borrowed equipment that day. Dinner was at the Chem Abstracts
grounds with Peter, Gene, and Allan (see Friday). The mosquito count was
comfortably low. Most of the concert was also filled with talking shop.
We were joined by a fellow clarinetist Jim (sorry I forgot the last name)
who was telling us stories from the 50's and 60's at the U of Mich and
playing under Revelli. We did pay much more attention to the concert when
Eddie came on. Eddie Daniels is always amazing - his sound, technique,
etc. Afterwards a debriefing session of beer and pizza at Donatos with Al,
Gene, and Dan Spitzer (Mississippi Sym).

Sunday: No not the last day. I made the 8 AM recital for sure since it was
filled with many Ohio State friends. All sounded great. I was very
impressed by Kim Ellis and Gail Lehto - excellent work. Next I was on with
the OSU alumni choir. Lot's of fun and Caroline Hartig did a fine job on
the Rossini. Kathleen Gardiner's recital was fantastic. Since I studied
in Vienna I was especially interested in the Howard Buss "Postcards from
Vienna". Tod Kerstetter and Jeff Olson did great work on the Crusell duets
(nonstop playing for 40 minutes - Jeff said he might have had 2 measures
rest somewhere in the pieces). The Marine Band quartet was unearthly - a
movement of a Bartok string quartet arranged for clarinets was just
unbelievable. I've heard this group before and knew they'd be fantastic.
The Stoltzman finale was and hour and a half filled with world class
playing.

The klarinet list party at Donatos was a pleasant time and it was nice
putting names with faces. The group photo will be appearing at your local
post office in the next few weeks (I had to use that one again.) I feel
like I keep using the words great, fantastic, 1st class in my report from
the festival but really all of the festival was just that. I met old
friends and made new ones. The neat thing was that if I saw a clarinet
name tag I'd just start up a conversation with that person and they were
always eager to talk clarinet or concerts, or whatever no matter if they
were a pro, professor, or amateur. I'm sorry if I missed your recital.
Sometimes I wished that I could be in two (or three) places at once. I had
a great time - is this what heaven is like? Now back to finishing the DMA,
auditioning, finding a full time job, cleaning bird cages, etc. in other
words: back to earth.

Your clarinet friend,

Dan

P.S. Thank you Mario, I don't know everyone - yet! - but I'm working on it.

*********************************************************************
Daniel A. Paprocki

Instructor of Clarinet & Saxophone, Malone College
Adjunct Professor of Clarinet, Kent State University - Stark Campus

dap@-----.net
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