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22 April 2017
University of Delaware Clarinet Day - Dr Christopher Nichols, Director
Newcastle, Delaware USA
Delaware Clarinet Day 2017 was a great time! We learned so much over the course of the day from the presenters, performers and lecturers. Thanks to Légère Reeds, Buffet Crampon USA, University of Delaware Community Music School and the University of Delaware Department of Music for supporting the event. Brava to Wolfgang Lohff, Michele Gingras, the West Point Band's Academy Clarinet Quartet and Gregory Harrison for their amazing talents and knowledge!
Wolfgang Lohff presented a lecture about optimization and customization of the clarinet! There were tons of tips about humidifying clarinets, crack preventation, storage and more!
10 - 22 April 2017
4th International Clarinet Competition Ghent, with World Class Jury of Artists - VIP Eddy Vanoosthuyse, Director
Ghent, Belgium
18 - 21 April 2017
VIMM Virovitica International Music Meeting - Radovan Cavallin Žerjal, Director
Virovitica, Croatia
The 5 edition of VIMM
Masterclass and Competition has ended! Myself and my fantastic colleagues:
Davor Reba,
Luís Gomes and Nikola Srdić ,we had a wonderful tim...e
with many participants performing great clarinet choir concert, giving the most
enjoyable lessons and listening to some fantastic playing at this morning's
competition!
Wish to thank everyone for coming, for their beautiful playing and
great work done over last 4 days!
Equally my most sincere gratitude to our faithful sponsors: Silverstein Works,
D'ADDARIO Woodwinds, SELMER, Soundtech, KWA and
Junior Barkley for their support and wonderful
prizes for competition winners!
And finally many thanx to Damir Mihaljević and a Music School Jan Vlašimsky to
make this event possible!
Big hug and see you next year at VIMM 2018!
The project is intended not only to offer a possibility of the official professional development of its attendees, but it has been given a new dimension through bringing musicians closer together, by exchanging experience between music school students and academy students from all over Europe.
The individually-based music workshops will last for 4 days. The emphasis will be on individual approach and chamber music. The highlight of the seminar will be a competition and concert performed by tutors and attendees.
In the spring of 2017, in the organization of Glazba na kvadrat d.o.o. and cooperation with Music School Jan Vlašimsky, the Town of Virovitica will host a one-of-a-kind professional development model intended for music school and academy students of clarinet from Europe. The seminar program has been carefully planned and adapted to suit the needs of beginners, as well as of more advanced attendees who have already chosen to pursue their career in music.
7 - 17 April 2017
Berliner Philharmoniker Easter Festival
Baden Baden, Germany
Berliner Philharmoniker Easter Festival in Baden Baden, Germany
7 - 8 April 2017
VIP Steve Girko Soloist performing Copland Clarinet Concerto with Austin Symphony
Austin, Texas USA
Why I adore the Austin Symphony
When I arrived during the 1980s, the Austin Symphony was OK.
Fine artists. Respectable programs. Perhaps too much emphasis on visiting marquee soloists, but that’s what the group’s leaders felt sold tickets.
It was missing two crucial ingredients: Peter Bay and the Long Center.
After a season-long audition process, Bay became music director and conductor in 1998. Instantly, the sun came out from behind the musical clouds. Young, friendly and charismatic, Bay was a perfect fit for Austin. He raised standards and — carefully at first, given the group’s inherent traditionalism — expanded the programming. He’s been the symphony’s top attraction ever since.
Trouble was, the ensemble still played at UT’s Bass Concert Hall, an excellent place for many types of performance, but not this group’s best friend. The artists struggled to overcome its vast arid volumes. (Those acoustical conditions have since been adjusted.)
In 2008, the symphony moved over to the Long Center, a remake of the 1959 Palmer Auditorium. No group benefited more from this new anchor for the arts than the city’s orchestra. Warm, intimate and embracing, the center’s Dell Hall made all the difference redefining the symphony’s now expanded range of sounds.
I was reminded of this evolution during the past three weeks when I heard the symphony three times. The group’s first ever attempt at Gustav Mahler‘s epic Symphony No. 6 was spun into 80 uninterrupted minutes of sonic gold. Bay did not shy away from the more modern elements in this piece that is still somewhat moored in the Romantic era. It was exhausting — in a good way — just to listen to it. I can’t imagine what it was like to conduct or play it.
The next week, the symphony sounded, correctly, more modest playing Wolfgang Mozart in tandem with Ballet Austin‘s merry and bright “The Magic Flute.” This time, Bay’s job was to keep the dancing afloat without overwhelming the night with music, also to help us to forget we were not hearing the human voices from the operatic version. The artists on the stage and in the pit collaborated as if part of one happy Mozartian family.
The third week, the symphony returned to a mixed bill, this time of Aaron Copland, John Corigliano and Antonin Dvorák. The theme appeared to be patriotism or perhaps nationalism, or something along those lines, but not just of the American kind, since Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 — expertly rendered — sounds quite European, in fact Bohemian. The two highlights turned out to be the Copland numbers, “Lincoln Portrait” and the Clarinet Concerto, the first with rousing narration by Gloria Quinlan, the second with an astounding solo from the symphony’s principal clarinetist, Stephen Girko.
I’m glad I lived in Austin during the 1980s and ’90s. But some things just get better with age. The Austin Symphony is one of them.
5 April 2017
Senior VIP Franklin Cohen Recital at Trinity Cathedral Noon Concert Series with Performance of World Premiere of the David Conte Clarinet Sonata written for Franklin Cohen
Cleveland, Ohio USA
2 April 2017
University of Maryland Clarinet Symposium - VIP Robert DiLutis, Director with Senior VIP Steve Cohen (Professor at Northwestern University and Former Solo Clarinetist in the Louisiana Philharmonic
College Park, Maryland USA
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Revised: May 04, 2017