Klarinet Archive - Posting 000089.txt from 2007/07
From: "Kevin Fay" <kevin.fay.home@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] ClarinetFest 2007 reflections
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:50:06 -0400
Sean Osborne posted:
<<<Just some personal reflections on the great ClarinetFest I just got home
from.
* * *
With many events scheduled simultaneously, and so many great vendors
there, I often wished I could be in two or three places at once. I'm
sure I missed some amazing performances or great equipment. I guess
I'll have to go again next year.>>>
The Fest this year was *amazing* - I had a blast. Thoughts:
FAVORITES
There were some excellent performances, others that I was a bit underwhelmed
with. A few knocked my sox off:
Lee Livengood - played the snot out of Muczynski's Time Pieces. IMHO, the
best pure tone of the festival. Like the haircut, too.
Lawrie Bloom - other than some trouble with notes better played on eepher, a
flawless and most musical performance of Cahuzac's Alrequin, plus Eric
Ewazen's new string 5tet.
Tom Pulwalski - kicked butt on Eric Richards' Klezmer Tribute with the
Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble. (Mary Backun also did a fine job with
Ticheli's Blue Shades, and Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue & Riffs). Tom also
did the Bar Gig, and cooked a mean hamburger at Morrie's.
Ricardo Morales - played the Brahms 5tet. Perfectly.
Jonathan Cohler/Howard Klug - Meyer Kupferman's Four Double Features. Wow.
STARK Quartet - 4 music educators from Milan. These guys ROCK - and I
*hate* clarinet 4tets! Europeans seem to have more fun than us stuffy North
Americans. A pile of goodness.
Keith Wilson Tribute - this, I think, was the high point of the Fest. It
should have been held in the Chan Centre, as the hall was packed. Francois
Houle was fantastic; I'd never heard double slap-tonguing before. Eric
Mandat was equally stunning.
Mark Nuccio - a great set, finishing with a super Morton Gould's Benny's
Gig.
Michael Rusinek - possibly the greatest talent out of Pittsburgh since
Willie Stargell or Roberto Clemente. (My gal friends say he's to-die-for
good looking, too). Life is not fair!
THE TOY ROOM
The most fun part of the Fest was to play with all the New Toys. Buffet had
a gazillion clarinets set up - looked like a granadilla meadow at one end of
the room. Conn-Selmer/Morrie Backun had a forest of their new horns, too.
Some interesting things:
Orsi has long made some interesting clarinets - see
http://www.orsi-wind-instruments.it/clarinets_list.htm for some fun stuff.
John Weir, an engineer formerly with Conn-Selmer, has worked with them to
produce a really good clarinet. I liked it, but not enough to whip out the
credit card given my already vast collection. See
http://www.orsiandweir.com/index.php for some really pretty horns.
The guys from Woodwind & Brasswind were pretty bored, as fols were trying
out horns at the manufacturers' tables. (I don't get this - at WWBW, one
could try the different horns side by side. Oh well.) The WWBW guys
decided to liven things up by having a "blindfold test." You'd try 5
different clarinets with a blindfold on, tell them the one you liked best,
and only then would they tell you which one that was.
The results were interesting. I picked a bone-stock Buffet R-13.
Apparently this was one of the 2 top picks (the other being a Buffet
Vintage). The new Leblanc Backun did well, as did the Orsi-Weir; the pie
chart looked pretty even.
I thought that I could play concerts successfully on any of them - this is
the golden age of clarinet making, right now.
I did try one clarinet that I almost had to buy - an older-design Leblanc
called the "Big Easy." I'm not sure that it would be all that great for
Mozart, as the intonation was a bit hinky, but for traditional jazz it was a
blast. Very, very powerful sound. (It's possible that this is just a
re-badging of the horn that Bonade used, so maybe Mozart isn't impossible
either.) I liked the old-school Leblanc keywork as well.
I bought a mouthpiece from these folks - http://www.woodwindexpert.com/.
The display was run by nice folks from Denmark with some really nicely
tricked-out Buffets; they use a new sort of synthetic pad that's really
cool. I tried the mouthpiece on the suggestion of my friend Bev Setzer (who
bought two of them). The L&P folks didn't know much about the mouthpiece
maker, just that he's a guy in Germany named Deitz who works on Zinner
blanks. In any event, I tried it, liked it and bought it.
MY DAY AT MORRIE'S
Given that Vancouver is Morrie Backun's home turf, it's no wonder that the
weekend seemed like one long advertisement for his stuff. He had an open
house on Saturday, complete with bus service and a pretty good BBQ. Lots of
bells, whistles, and the most interesting fountain outside the factory.
I tried a few of the new Leblanc clarinets. My favorite was the cheapest
one; the upscale versions seemed to me to have the keys in the wrong place,
and not quite the same sparkle to the sound that I like. A platoon of
really excellent players (from David Schifrin through Tom Pulwalski) all
seemed to like the super-pimped versions fine, though.
I tried a few of the new Backun/Morales mouthpieces. On a simple
inspection, it's obvious that they are all machine-faced - you can see faint
tool marks on the table. Given that it's done my machine, his marginal cost
couldn't be much more than Vandoren's, yet he charges 500 bux a pop.
Highway robbery! You'd have to be a moron to pay that much for a clarinet
mouthpiece.
(Ed. note - unfortunately, the sound is just so darn good I had to buy one.
I must be a moron. My wife certainly thinks so.)
I have huge respect for Morrie, not only as a fine repair technician and
acoustician, but also as a businessman. He's cranked up the price of his
barrels and bells to the point where they cost almost as much as an entire
clarinet. (Of course, should you buy a Leblanc/Backun, you get the cool
stuff for free . . .)
I am not certain that the bells and barrels sound that much better than
stock. They sure are pretty, though. Given that their horn is the most
prized possession of so many clarinetists young and old, it's no wonder that
folks want to gussie it up.
(Ed. note - this is much like my business, too. Our best customer is the
Billy Bob Beltbuckle who buys a $100,000 Peterbilt and immediately slaps
thirty grand of chrome accessories on it. The difference is that a Big
Chrome Bumper won't make a truck run better - Morrie's stuff seems to work
quite well).
The best thing about Morrie is that he treats all of his customers the same
- like royalty. I'm a high-mediocre amateur player in a semi-professional
orchestra. Rationally, Morrie should show me the door whilst tending his
artist customers. Morrie is not rational, however; he just loves showing
off Cool Clarinet Stuff to the world at large.
THE BEST PART
. . . so it's one in the morning, and I'm cracking yet another beer in a
dorm room full of musicians that I've just met, or haven't seen in twenty
years. It' nice being sophomoric once in a while.
I got to meet so many folks from the list - Nancy (a tireless volunteer),
Audrey (the Energizer Bunny!) and even Mark Charette (an infamous yet
unknown rock star). This was really cool.
Next year it's in Kansas City. The BBQ will be fabulous, I'm sure, along
with the clarinetting. I hope to go.
kjf
------------------------------------------------------------------
