Klarinet Archive - Posting 000947.txt from 2004/07

From: "Film & Music Promotion Management" <FilmPromotion@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Clarfest - my observations
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:23:57 -0400

I also went to Clarfest and had a great time. My only complaint was
that there was way too much "academic modern" music performed. All
performances were played really well and had some extremely difficult
works, but a lot of the 'music' I heard just didn't rate the effort to
listen to it. To me, the quality of compositions that many played were
the equal to comparing the quality of rap music to music of the past.
Composers have taken atonality and to me ruined their music.

There wasn't at all (to me) a good balance between the standard works
and what I heard. Sure, a concert or 2 devoted to that stuff is
interesting, but when I'm hearing it all day, I get tired quite
quickly of it. Pretty much past the "A Set" of Martino is where I draw
my own line - if it's much more way out than that, I'm going to get
jaded pretty fast.

There are modern but TONAL composers and compositions out there and
personally I'd like to hear a lot more of them. High, fast and squawky
doesn't impress me at all. A modern work - but with some semblance of
tonality like the Bela Kovacs Hommages does.

Another observation was that the Backud products (the barrels and
bells) took the Fest like a storm! Many, many, many top players were
using them. Ricardo Morales performed on his Bell and Barrel a mind
blowing performance of the Nielsen Concerto - was the most amazing
performance I have ever heard a Clarinetist do. I haven't seen a
ClarFest which most everyone was using a product except in the past
seeing the Pyne Barrels used by many.

And everyone I spoke to who used it raved about the Backud equipment.

David Blumberg
http://artists.primetones.com/blummy

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