Jorge Montilla

Last week, Venezuelan clarinetist Jorge Montilla came to Chicago April 19th and 20th to play with the

Chicago Clarinet Ensemble (CCE). He played a solo concert Friday night, gave a masterclass, and played with the CCE in a concert featuring him.  Montilla is an amazing clarinetist whom I think is the best Eb player in the world.  As one of the members of the CCE said, "it was like it was a real instrument."  If you have heard many of us (like me) play the Eefer, you will understand how much of a compliment this is!  It was a great weekend, filled with wonderful perforamnces, and I was so excited to get to be a part of it all.

I had met Jorge Montilla last summer when I went to a clarinet camp at which he was teaching.  I learned then that he is not only a wonderful performer, he is also a great teacher!

The first time I saw Mr. Montilla during his recent stay in Chicago was on Friday during a CCE rehearsal for the concert on Saturday.  He played beautifully, and during a break in the rehearsal, he came up to me, clasped me on the shoulder, and asked how I have been since he had last saw me.  I was really happy that he remembered who I was!

That same night, I heard him play his solo concert.  All I can say is, "Wow!"  Mr. Montilla played the first half of the concert on Bb clarinet and sounded quite sublime.  My favorite piece that he played in this part of the concert was an arrangement he made of Cierra Los Ojos y Eschucha by Piazolla.  Cierra Los Ojos y Eschucha means "Close your eyes and listen" in Spanish.  Before he played the piece, he asked us to do just that and try to imagine the beautiful mountains and plains of Argentina that Piazolla was trying to capture when we wrote this piece for solo violin.  The thing about Jorge Montilla's playing that stuck out the most was his vibrato.  I have never heard any other clarinetist ever play with such gorgeous vibrato in all of my life.   Don't get me wrong.  Many clarinets use a very good vibrato, but Montilla's stands out over anything I have heard.  It is as wide and as colorful as the vibrato of any string player, and it gives his music a very distinct, personal and intimate sound.

For the second half of the concert he played the Eb clarinet.  He played every piece with such vibrancy that everyone in the hall was completely captivated by every note he played.  My  favorite piece was the Alfred Prinz Sonata for Eb Clarinet and Piano.  The first and third movement are very beautiful and the second movement is incredibly fast (hence the title "As Fast as Possible").  My favorite movement was the fourth.  Most of this movement is Rossini opera and overture melodies with brief virtuosic interludes.  Near the end there is an excerpt from Strauss's Till Eugenspiel in which there is a very famous Eb clarinet solo.  The effect is very funny, and I found it quite entertaining.  The Prinz is a really fun and exiting piece of music.  I have to say that every piece Mr. Montilla presented was executed with style, beauty, transcendent musicality, and the flying technical proficiency that marks him as a world-class clarinetist.

Playing with the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble

About a month ago, my teacher, Dileep, asked me if I wanted to perform with the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble. The Chicago Clarinet Ensemble was founded in 2007 by Dr. Rose Sperazza who teaches at Northeastern University.  The performance contains mostly college students and adults so it is really exciting to play with them. Everyone has been really nice through the rehearsals even though I'm a lot younger than everyone there. Also, Stanley Drucker, the former principal of the New York Philharmonic, and his wife Naomi Drucker, also an accomplished clarinetist, are playing with us. Stanley Drucker was the principal clarinetist of the Philharmonic for more than 50 years and he has played in more than 10,000 concerts. He even played under Leonard Bernstein! We are performing tonight.

The concert should be a lot of fun. We are playing are Pursuits of Happiness a sextet by Eric Mandat, Hasty Fragments by Edward Yadzinski, Ruth, Rubric-Rational; Realisms-Relationals by Jeff Kowalkowski, Mendelssohn’s duo concerti for two clarinets, which will feature the Druckers, Molly on the Shore by Grainger, and Jupiter from the Planets by Holst. The Mandat, the Yadzinski, and the Kowalkowski are all premiers. I am playing on the Holst, the Grainger, and the Kowalkowski. It is a really fun selection of pieces.

The Pursuits of Happiness is a sextet by Eric Mandat. Performing this piece are Mr. and Mrs. Drucker and Rose Sperazza on Bb clarinet, John Bruce Yeh playing Eb clarinet, his wife Teresa Reilly playing basset horn, and Mr. Tuttle on bass clarinet. There are three movements. The first one is fast and happy and features the Druckers. I especially like it when the Druckers play sweeping notes up and down the clarinets' range extremely quickly while the bass clarinet plays a very low and light harmony. There is one part in the first movement when no one plays except Mr. Drucker. I love this movement. The second movement is slow and intense. This movement seems to probe your mind and look into your deepest hidden feelings. It features Mr. Yeh and his wife very prominently. I can't wait to hear it again tonight.

Yesterday I got to sit on on the Druckers rehearsing the Mendelsson and the sextet.  The Mendelssohn duo concerti are being played by the Drucker being accompanied by the clarinet ensemble. The Druckers are amazing!  Just listening to Mr. Drucker warm-up before the rehearsal was cool. He played five arpeggios in the time it would take me to play one. It was really inspiring to watch him and his wife working with John Bruce Yeh.  I loved every movement of the Mendelssohn concerti, but I especially liked the last movement of the second concerto, the polacca. It was amazing how they moved from register to register without any change in the color of their sound.  I find this really hard to do. They moved beautifully though each register of the clarinet, each dynamic and the different styles of the compositions. I cannot wait to hear him perform tonight!  May I'll even get up the courage to ask Rose to introduce me to the Druckers tonight.  They are legendary clarinetists after all.

Molly on Shore is a quick light piece with a repetitive Irish theme. I am playing fourth clarinet in this song and so I get mostly the beat and the harmony under the melody. This is a great piece, because there is a counter-melody always going on at the same time as the melody. The theme is always consistent but the counter-melody changes and moves in interesting ways. This piece is really good for a clarinet choir because of the beautifully light, pure sound of a a clarinet. John Bruce Yeh is conducting both Molly on the Shore, Jupiter and the Mendelssohn.

Ruth, rubric-rational; realism-relationals is an exotic piece for clarinet choir and synthesizer by Jeff Kowalkowski. It changes time signatures constantly so you always have to be on your toes while performing it. It is a very otherworldly radiant composition. I especially like that there are a couple of duets in the middle of the piece for synthesizer and contrabass clarinet without accompaniment. This makes a really fun combination. I also like the way the composer has combined the Contrabass and Eb clarinets -- not a common pairing! The stark differences in the range of these two instruments create an odd but strangely ethereal effect. At many places in the piece everyone is playing similar parts but not at the same time. That made it very difficult for me to play it yesterday at the rehearsal because I was the only second Bb clarinet there. I think it is an outstanding work.

I love how the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble can sound so much like a full orchestra, especially in a piece like Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity from the Planets. Jupiter is a grand and festive piece. I am playing second clarinet on Jupiter and I get a lot of melody which is exciting. The piece is extremely light and carefree for much of it. During a slower section, the clarinets imitate the low strings and brass very well, who play this part in the original version. I love the ending where the clarinets are like a torrent, flying up and down arpeggios. Jupiter has a great ending with a restatement of the original theme in a fast tempo which keeps crescendoing until the last note.

Watching My Teacher Perform

Last monday I got to see my teacher Dileep Gangolli perform at the Chicago Cultural Center.

The Chicago Cultural Center is a really cool building.  The building has a big colorful stained glass dome, and the theater inside has great acoustics.

My mom dropped me off in the morning at Dileep's house, and I went downtown with Dileep and his wife Janice who is also very cool.  Dileep soloed with a piano accompaniest, and he played really well.  He played a Brahms sonata, Charles Stanford's Three Intermezzi for Clarinet and Piano, and Niels Gade's Fantasy Pieces with pianist Huang Hao Hung. 

I loved the concert.  I really liked the selection of pieces.  They were all pieces I hadn't heard before except the Brahms sonata.  I like listening to new pieces, because I learn new things.  Dileep played very expressively, which is one of his biggest strenths.  He is passionate about the music, and it really shows when he performs.  His performance was very exciting, and he seems to enjoy every minute that he was on stage.  I hope I get to see more of his concerts in the future.

After the performance, Dileep took me out for sushi for lunch, and sushi is my favorite food.  And then we went back to his house and I had a 2 hour lesson with him.  Because my mom couldn't pick me up until the evening, I stayed at his house and read and had dinner and practiced my piano there. 

Not only is Dileep a great performer, he is also a really amazing and inspiring teacher.  I love his lessons and I look forward to them all week.

Anthony McGill and the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble

On Friday, I went to a concert featuring Anthony McGill and the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble. For those of you who don’t know, Anthony McGill is the principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City. He’s won all sorts of awards, and he is a well known virtuoso in the world of classical musicians. He’s most famous for playing at Obama’s inauguration with Yoyo Ma and Itzak Perlman. He is also my favorite clarinetist. This was a great concert, and I really enjoyed myself.

When he played the Concertino by Carl Maria von Weber, Anthony McGill really showed us what virtuoso he is with an amazing performance. I loved his phrasing and emotional expression. His slow parts had a very sweet and dark tone and his fast parts were very in control. He shaped his phrases so beautifully. His movement matched his musical expression, and he was very fun to watch. After the piece was over, I wanted him to play it again – maybe ten or twenty times.

The Latin American piece Four for Four by Jorge Montilla, started the concert. The bass clarinet solo really stood out. Mr. Tuttle had enormous control, especially the high register. He had a very full and big sound, but sweet. The first movement sounded like the bass clarinet was making a very important speech and the Bb and Eb clarinets were whispering, chattering, and laughing behind his back while he made his very important speech. All four musicians worked together very well.

The second piece they played was called Paquito by Andy Scott. I love this piece! I like how the high and low parts play off of each other, like they’re bouncing. It was like many things happening at the same time in a crowded room. The piece is very busy, but in a good way. The parts split off and go in different directions and come back together again. This was my favorite piece (outside of the McGill performance).

Throughout the entire concert, Rose Sperrazza was very funny between performances. I liked the way she talked to the audience like they were a group of her very good friends. She showed great leadership for the other musicians.

The last performance before the intermission was the world premier of Tres Canciones by Leo Schwartz who was there conducting. The first pieces of the concert were very physical and grounded in reality. This piece was very eerie and otherworldly. It was like you were floating around in a dreamworld. The third movement was like you woke up and you saw things how they really were again and that the world wasn’t just a dream. I thought the counter-tenor was odd. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a counter-tenor before, but Lon Ellenberger's performance was very good and it helped create the floating feel of the piece.

The Merit School clarinetists played Simple Gifts arranged by Ricky Lombardo. This arrangement of this famous American folk song played by students of Merit School made me think of the Aaron Copland Appalachian Springs movement that features this theme in many variations, and the John Williams piece from the inauguration. It was a great choice because it is a great tribute to Anthony McGill who was a student of Merit when he was young.

The concert ended with First Suite in Eb by Gustav Holst. It was nice to hear a Holst piece that WASN’T the Planets. I really liked how the clarinets could cover all of the parts of an orchestral piece that was written for many different instruments. It was neat how the clarinets sounded like clarinets, but at the same time, they gave the impression of strings and brass, and filled up the auditorium with their sound. Wow!

I wish I could travel in time so I could watch the concert again.

Anthony McGill Comes to Chicago

Tonight, I heard an amazing concert featuring Anthony McGill and the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble.  I would write more tonight, but I am exhausted, so I think I'll start the review in the morning.

The words that come to mind initially are:  amazing, outstanding, magnificent.  More tomorrow.