Clarinet Concerto (2019) – ca. 17'
Clarinet; 3[1.2/pic.3/pic] 3 3 3[1.2.3/cbn] - 4 3 3 1 - tmp+3 - hp + elec - str
Click this link to listen to the full piece in the context of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra's "virtual gallery" where middle school students in New Jersey responded to the work with visual/poetic responses.
Co-commissioned by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Barlow Endowment for clarinet soloist Kinan Azmeh.
Premiere performances
Princeton Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rossen Milanov, featuring soloist Kinan Azmeh at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, NJ (January 18-19, 2020)
Princeton Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rossen Milanov, featuring soloist Kinan Azmeh at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, NJ (January 18-19, 2020)
PROGRAM NOTE
This Clarinet Concerto is the latest chapter of my output that fuses my love for all things orchestral, technological, and ancestral. I composed this work from January to October 2019 on both coasts of the U.S., though it more aptly relates to a region and tradition that is mostly unfamiliar to America and the rest of the West: that of the Middle East and its rich tradition of classical Arab music. Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian-born, New York-based clarinetist and composer, and I met five years ago through our association with Juilliard professor Mari Kimura, a violinist known for ushering in a new wave of conservatory-trained classical musicians to the wonders of interactive music technology. Like myself, Kinan is enraptured by the spectrum of emotion that lies between Western and Middle Eastern musics, and is always searching for ways to use our modern technological tools to highlight those facets.
The clarinet itself is an instrument I have a personal fondness for, having played it in marching band throughout my high school years. There is a physicality (i.e. ‘marching’) that I will always associate with the instrument, and this is certainly the case with this Clarinet Concerto. Kinan’s role in the orchestra is governed by where and when he moves on stage. He is unseen, yearning for attention, unwittingly thrusted into public view, given a platform to express his thoughts, overshadowed and forgotten, and finally, elegiacal from all the pain he holds inside.
While the work draws on tenets from very specific traditions of music, it is my hope that this music conveys a more universal spirit of cooperation and cordiality with our fellow human beings, as we live out our finite time here in the most just, and loving way that we can.
The coda, entitled “For Jido,” was written in the memory of my late grandfather, Jido Adib, who passed in August 2019 at the age of 76. He moved his family of seven, including my grandmother Salimeh, uncles George, Elie, and Salim, aunt Sylva, and my mother Lucy, halfway across the world to escape war-torn Lebanon during the midst of its civil war.
Clarinet Concerto is dedicated to Kinan Azmeh.
The clarinet itself is an instrument I have a personal fondness for, having played it in marching band throughout my high school years. There is a physicality (i.e. ‘marching’) that I will always associate with the instrument, and this is certainly the case with this Clarinet Concerto. Kinan’s role in the orchestra is governed by where and when he moves on stage. He is unseen, yearning for attention, unwittingly thrusted into public view, given a platform to express his thoughts, overshadowed and forgotten, and finally, elegiacal from all the pain he holds inside.
While the work draws on tenets from very specific traditions of music, it is my hope that this music conveys a more universal spirit of cooperation and cordiality with our fellow human beings, as we live out our finite time here in the most just, and loving way that we can.
The coda, entitled “For Jido,” was written in the memory of my late grandfather, Jido Adib, who passed in August 2019 at the age of 76. He moved his family of seven, including my grandmother Salimeh, uncles George, Elie, and Salim, aunt Sylva, and my mother Lucy, halfway across the world to escape war-torn Lebanon during the midst of its civil war.
Clarinet Concerto is dedicated to Kinan Azmeh.