International Clarinet Association High School Solo Competition

Today, I found out I made the finals of the ICA High School Solo Competition.  This competition is open to clarinetists who are 18 years old or younger all over the world.  The final round will take place during the first week in August in Lincoln, Nebraska at the ICA's Clarinetfest.

It’s Progress Anyway…

Now that it’s been more than 2000 hours of practice, let’s look to see if there has been any progress.  I only count practice room hours, not rehearsal time with my chamber groups or orchestras or any other ensemble.


This is a video of me in 2009 after a couple hundred hours of practice.

After a couple hundred hours of practice at age 12.

This is a video of me in late 2010 after 1000 hours of practice.

After 1000 hours at age 13.

This is a video of me in 2012 after 2000 hours of practice.

After 2000 hours at age 14.

So practicing is definitely helping, but I feel like I still have a long way to go.

Master Class with Jon Manasse

On Saturday, I played in a wonderful master class taught by Jon Manasse along with four other students:  Ryan Toher, Konrad Pawelek and Miguel Hernandez.  I thought Mr. Manasse was as good of a teacher as he is a performer.

I played second in the program on Weber's Concertino.  I started kind of tense, but after the beginning, I relaxed and played much better.  After I finished, Mr. Manasse asked how old I was.  When I told him 14, he said, "Wow!  I played that piece when I was fourteen."   He had a lot of good things to say about my playing, which made me feel a lot more comfortable -- I was really nervous.  He was an extremely nice and supportive teacher as well as being an informative one.

After that, we worked on tuning.  He first told me that there were 5 states of tuning:  in tune, sharp, flat, I don't know, and I don't care.  He said we could probably rule out "out don't care," and he had me play a tuning note with the piano.  He asked me if I thought I was sharp, flat, in tune, or I don't know.  I thought was out of tune, but I had to admit that I wasn't sure if I was sharp or flat.  Mr. Manasse said, it was good that I knew I wasn't in tune, and he said it was really hard for wind players to tell when they are a little off.  He said string players have an advantage, because they have to tune every time they play, so they have a lot of practice at hearing what it is to be sharp or flat, as they had to make adjustments every time.

He then asked me to play the beginning of my piece and told me to pay more attention and to adjust if it was out of tune.  Well, he told me that I tended to play a little sharp.  So he gave me some advice about how to work on tuning.  He said to put a tuner on a drone, and tune so you're really sharp.  Learn what it sounds like to be sharp.  Then, tune really flat, so you can be aware of what it sounds like to be really flat.  Then he said to work on different notes, and figure out what notes tend to be sharp or flat under differing conditions.

I liked the idea he had to learn how to recognize whether you are sharp or flat by playing sharp or flat on purpose in an exaggerated way to increase your awareness of your tuning.

Mr. Manasse was a really nice and informative teacher.  It was an amazing master class.  He gave me such good advice, and he did it in a way that made me feel good about my playing.  In fact, the theme of the master class was to remember why you play your instrument, to remember what you like about your playing, instead of taking a negative approach and focusing on what you don't like about your playing.  It's easy to get caught up in trying to perfect everything, and forget how much you love playing music.  I definitely do that sometimes!

Manasse Nakamazing Duo

Last Friday, I heard clarinetist, Jon Manasse, perform with pianist, Jon Nakamatsu at Northeastern University.  It was a breathtaking concert.  Both men are amazing musicians, and Mr. Manasse was really funny and entertaining when he spoke with the audience.

The first piece the duo played was the Brahms clarinet sonata.  This sonata is a gorgeous piece, and they played it beautifully.  Mr. Manasse's tone and expression were exquisite.  I think my favorite movement was the first, because Mr. Manasse conveyed a real sense of melancholy that was very moving.  One part of the performance that I particularly liked was Manasse's movement, which was very expressive.  Both musicians communicated really well, and they both seemed comfortable together.

After they played the Brahms, Mr. Manassee talked a little.  He spoke about the sonata, and he noted that a lot of composers seem to die after they write solo music for the clarinet.  Mozart, Brahms, and Poulenc, all apparently died after composing their famous clarinet pieces.  Mr. Manasse said he used to think that writing solo music for the clarinet must have killed them.  Although, he quickly noted that composing solo clarinet music now extends the lives of composers.

The last piece before intermission was a solo piano work by Chopin.  Mr. Nakamatsu was so technically proficient, but his phrasing and musicality were stunning.  I loved how he kept the sense of musicality even though the fast parts.

After the intermission, Mr. Manasse talked with the audience some more.  He was fun to listen to, and he started calling Mr. Nakamatsu "Nakamazing"  which I thought was pretty funny.  The first piece they played after intermission was Leonard Bernstein's Opus 1, his clarinet sonata.  This music has a few glissandos and I really liked how Mr. Manasse played them.

The last part of the concert was "Four Rags for Two Jons."  This was a really fun piece that Manasse and Nakamatsu performed astoundingly well.  It has a lot of parts which were meant for the audience to laugh at.  In many sections of the piece, the audience snaps with the soloists, and the pianist shouts things and stomps.  The end of the work is especially funny when the piano starts to play the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and the clarinet keeps playing the theme from the piece.

Afterwards, the audience kept calling for ovations, and Mr. Manasse finally went to the microphone and said, "Well, you asked for it!"  He then played an arrangement of "I've Got Rhythm" for clarinet and piano, which I just loved.  It was a great end to an amazing concert.

A Fist Fight at Symphony Center!!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Chicago Symphony Center to watch the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) perform and to take a lesson from John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet.

The lesson with Mr. Yeh was amazing.  We worked on the sonata for clarinet and piano by Martinu.  The two main things he focused on were finger position and phrasing.

Mr. Yeh started the lesson by having me play a little.  he stopped me right after I got through the most technically difficult part of the piece.  He said that I wasn't sealing the holes of the clarinet properly by first landing on them with the tip of my fingers and then flattening my knuckle to cover the entire hole.  Mr. Yeh told me that I had to make sure that my fingers always stayed curved and right about the holes.  I actually keep my fingers flat and farther away from where they should rest on the clarinet.  If my fingers are not right above the holes and my knuckles aren't bent, then the clarinet will not seal right away when I place my fingers on the keys, making technical sections much harder.  Good advice!

The other thing we worked on was phrasing.  Mr. Yeh wanted me to play like a string player.  This means that all of the different slurs or bow strokes need to be made clear with the tongue.  It also means that I have to make each slur in the Martinu its own phrase.  He also noticed that I was giving the long notes a crescendo, and he didn't like that.  Mr. Yeh said I should crescendo on the moving notes and decrescendo on the long notes.  I've not hear this advice before, so it was really good to hear.

After the lesson, I went to the concert.  It was a night of Brahms with Muti conducting.  First, Pinchas Zukerman played the Violin Concerto in D major and then we heard Brahms Symphony no. 2 in D major.  The concert was really cool!  The CSO played the Brahms 2nd Symphony.  I loved the whole thing, but my favorite part was the last movement.  It really ends on a bang.  The CSO brass and woodwinds are so amazing!  I loved the big brass finish at the end.  And Mr. Williamson, the new principal clarinet, was fantastic.

The best part of the Brahms was the last movement, but the most interesting part of the night happened after the 2nd movement.  The end of the 2nd movement is very quiet and dies down into nothing.  The audience was silent -- no one was even coughing, when suddenly two loud thumps were heard in succession.  Everyone looked around to see what could have made that noise.  I could see a commotion in one of the boxes, but I wasn't sure what was happening.  Muti handled it well and moved gracefully into the 3rd movement after making certain that everything was all right.  I thought maybe someone had had fallen or gotten sick or something.

I found out a couple of days after the concert that what we heard and saw was actually a fight in one of the boxes!  A 30 year old man and a 67 year old man were arguing over seats.  Eventually the younger man lost his temper and started hitting the older man!  The thumping was the sound of the older man falling down, I think.  After the incident, the 30 year old ran away.

Other than the disturbance, it was a wonderful evening.  I hope I will have more lessons with John Bruce Yeh in the future.  He is a great teacher.

WFMT Introductions!

This Saturday, I am going to play on WFMT Introductions on the radio station 98.7 with my trio, the Triumvirate.  WFMT Introductions is a program that has a different youth chamber group or soloist come and play in the WFMT studio once a week.  A few weeks ago, the concert master of Midwest Young Artists, Jorie Butler-Geyer, played on this show.

The Triumvirate is a Piano-Viola-Clarinet trio consisting of myself, my brother Ari on viola, and Kevin Xu, a junior at Stephenson high school (My brothers high school), on piano.  My brother and I found Kevin through Midwest Young Artist's (MYA) chamber program.

We are playing the Kegelstatt trio by Mozart and Fairy Tales by Schumann.  The Kegelstatt trio is a piece I love and have been playing for a while.  It is the first piece written for this combination of instruments and has inspired many other composers to write for a Piano-Viola-Clarinet trio.  One of those composers was Schumann.  When Schumann heard the Kegelstatt being performed he was inspired to write for the combination.  Even though Fairy Tales was only written two years before Schumann's attempted suicide it is still very light in most places but, there are signs of agitation in some parts, especially in the second movement.

 I have never played on the radio and I am nervous but, I am also very excited to have this great opportunity.

9th Annual DePaul Concerto Festival for Young Performers

On Sunday (1/22/12), I got to play with the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra.  Earlier this month, I competed in the DePaul Concerto Festival Auditions, and I was chosen one of 13 winners to play my concerto with the orchestra.

For the clarinets they allowed the following pieces:  the Stamitz 3rd Concerto, the Weber Concertino, the 1st Weber Concerto, the 2nd Weber Concerto, and the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.  Since I had been preparing the Rossini Introduction, Theme and Variations for the Walgreens Concerto competition, I chose to play the Weber Concertino for the DePaul audition, because I had learned it the year before.

My brother gave me the good news when the results were published two weeks ago.  I had been in a chamber rehearsal, so he told me in between rehearsals.  I was really excited, because I've never played with an orchestra before.

There was only one rehearsal with the orchestra.  The conductor Mina Zikri spent a long time on my piece.  I was absolutely terrified when it came time to rehearse with the orchestra.  I played pretty badly the first couple of run throughs.  The orchestra was playing a little fast for me, and I was having trouble keeping the technical parts in control.  I was kind of afraid to tell the conductor to slow down.  I was kind of afraid to say anything at all.  Before the final run through, there was a break.  During the break, a few other performers rehearsed, and a friend of mine from my youth orchestra, David Berghoff, arrived for his rehearsal.  He had won for viola.  After talking to David, I felt more comfortable and confident.  They asked me if I wanted to run through the piece again, and I did.  This time it went much better.  I was able to relax, and play my best.  It also helped that Susanne Baker, founder and director of the DePaul Community Music Division, told Mr. Zikri that I would like the Concertino taken at a slower tempo.

A few days later, it was finally time for the performance with the orchestra.  I arrived an hour early, and I warmed up for a while.  Right before the concert, I was called up to play one more run through of my piece with the orchestra before the concert.  I did really well on the run through.  Everything went well, and I thought I totally ready to perform for the audience.

About fifteen minutes later, they called me up for my performance.  I was first on the program.  When I walked up on the stage, I was a little nervous, but mostly I was feeling confident that I would do well.  I started the piece, I hit the first note perfectly, and it is an easy note to mess up.  Things were going well, and then I looked up at the audience, and I forgot what the next note was.  I never ever have this problem!  I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe I was terrified, but I had felt so confident when I walked up on the stage.  I managed to play through the rest of the piece, but it was shaky in a few sections, and I missed a few notes on the runs.  I made mistakes I never make!  I actually did well in the sections I was worried about, and I messed up things that I usually play extremely well.  I couldn't figure out what was happening!

Finally, I finished.  I was kind of glad when the performance was over, because I was afraid that I was totally going to lose it.  I guess playing in front of an audience is something I need to practice at to get better at.

Still, it was a good experience.  I was surprised that a couple of my friends from school, Ally and Rachel, came all the way downtown to watch me perform.  It was really nice of them to come.  The other soloists were amazing, and it was a privilege to perform in the same program with them.  David Berghoff's performance was great, and a 6th grade pianist from my school, Eric Lin, also did a sensational job.

The violinists who played:  Benjamin Ellenbogen, Hanway Wang, Jisun Lee,Serena Harnack and Hanna Bingham were absolutely stunning.  Many of the performances were flawless, and I was pretty daunted.  In the end, it was amazing to be there, and it was amazing to hear all of the performances.  The Oistrach Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Mina Zikri, was fantastic, and it was a joy to hear them and a privilege to play with them.