Klarinet Archive - Posting 000880.txt from 2004/07

From: "Jim Lytthans" <lytthans@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] ClarinetFest Update II
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 23:22:41 -0400

Thursday 22 July, 2004:

I spent the morning at the exhibits, although my wife attended most of the
recitals. Again someone else will have to comment on them. Selmer
introduced it's new clarinet called the Saint Louis, after the 1904 St.
Louis Exposition, at which Selmer won several awards for their clarinets.
It's a nice sounding instrument, much like a decent R13. I asked Patrick
Selmer if he didn't take apart an R13, just to see how it ticks. Mon Dieu!
Non. We would never do that! Actually they did, after pushing him a bit.
I mentioned the coffee shop in Montes la Ville, where both the Buffet and
Selmer employees eat.... at separate tables. I told him that I talked to
both sets of workman and he called me a brave man indeed.

Tonight's concert featured the Army Orchestra, with a couple of excellent
Army clarinetists playing the Mendelssohn Concertpiece No. 1, and Alain
Billard, bass clarinet, performing the difficult, both for the player and
the listener, "Mit ausdruck", by Bruno Mantovani. Ricardo Morales then
performed the Nielsen Concerto, wonderfully! What technique and sound. He
jumped the Good Ship Leblanc recently and is now playing on Selmer Recital
clarinets, with barrels and bells by Morrie Backun. Maybe the Philadelphia
ghost of Tony Gigglioti haunts him. After the intermission Eddy
Vanoosthuyse and cellist Tom Landschood gave the US premiere of Dirk
Brosse's "Circle of Nature", with the conductor directing. It's a very
moody, evocative and film-like extended piece. Larry Combs closed the
concert with a virtuosic performance of the Copland Concerto.

More to come...... stay tuned.

Jim Lytthans
College Park, MD

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org