Klarinet Archive - Posting 000016.txt from 2006/10

From: "David Glenn" <davidglenn@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] clarinet symposium dresden (day 1 of 3)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:21:03 -0400

Hi everybody,
This is a report about the German biannual "Clarinetfest" which happened last weekend. In case anybody does not want to read it, I am dividing it into three sections easily recognizable and deletable without reading.
Enjoy!
David

________

Deutsche Klarinetten-Gesellschaft, Symposium 2006 in Dresden

This is a short report on the Symposium of the German Clarinet Society from Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2006 in the conservatory on Wettinerplatz (Wettin Square) in Dresden. The themes this year are "Teaching the Clarinet" and "Carl Maria von Weber"

DAY 1

Actually, I had cancelled my plans to go to the symposium because of a major project at my music school. But as it turned out, I had already accomplished every thing there was for me to do, so I decided only a day before to go afterall. A good idea! As I could find no flight from Basel or Zurich to Dresden and the returning train schedule would have involved staying up all night and spending hours on some station in the middle of the night with my bagage, I decided to drive by car. This took nine hours and was a beautiful drive.

I arrived at the symposium at 3PM on Friday, 29 September. I had studied the city map which I downloaded from internet and parked next to a very unusual building which looked like a mosque but, in fact, was a restaurant with a good view of Dresden. "This is starting out well", I thought as I realized that this was a free parking space! I got out of the car and walked in the direction, I thought the Wettinerplatz must be. I asked some standers by where it was. (I did not have the map with me) They had no idea so I said it must be near the Main Station (my map had told me it was near the "Bahnhof Mitte"). Well the main station was somewhere else and they sent me there where I parked my car for a lot of money and recieved instructions on how to get to the conservatory at the Wettinerplatz. I took the tram there and, in the evening took the tram back to my car. Later, I was to learn that "Bahnof Mitte" was not "Hauptbahnhof" (Main Station). The hotel was 40 km drive (near the Czech border) as there was nothing in Dresden exept a 4 star hotel. A beautiful spa town for which I had no time to enjoy but saved over 40 euros a night on the bill.

The program had started at 10 AM, so I had missed the official opening, a concert by students of Professor Joachim Klemm (the clarinet prof. from Dresden), a lecture on Stockhausen by Romi Sota-Klemm (yes, his wife), concerts of newly published music and lectures by Prof. Josef Oehl (Dresden) and James B. Wright (Osnabrueck). The next event scheduled was not until 4 PM and that got cancelled. So I had time to get a bite to eat, renew old aquaintances, make new ones and look at the displays by firms from Germany and Switzerland. As soon as the conductor of the clarinet choir saw me, he said, "David, I'm sure you would like to play the contrabass clarinet!" How could I refuse?

At 5 PM Wolfram Grosse played the Weber Quintet with the Dresdner String Quartet. He was very engaging and loved to take risks. He showed us his wonderful piano dolce tone and dazzled us with technical fireworks. The last movement went a bit faster than I could hear (!) The quartet was very good but I had the feeling that Herr Grosse and the cellist didn't understand each other very well. It was an enjoyable concert by a born entertainer!

At 6 PM was the first rehearsal of the Clarinet Choir. It was great fun to play the contra bass. At 7 PM, we were joined by a Japanese clarinet choir all playing on German clarinets and calling themselves "Holz". They even had a German-System contrabass clarinet, one of only four in the world as as I hear. It was great to have a colleage on the contra part!

There was a little time to eat and then at 8PM there were concerts by René Oswald from Switzerland and Hajo Willimczik, Hans-Matthias Glassmann and Ralph Zedler from Germany. Unfortunately, I had to pass it up in order to get to my hotel in the spa town of Bad Gottläuba before they closed the gates on me!

(for day 2, see next report)
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