This album traces my own musical journey from San Francisco in the '90s to Amsterdam in the '00s. The pieces are for solo clarinet or bass clarinet, and most will be premiere recordings. There are side trips to Japan, visitations to war zones, imaginary conversations with the dead, a personal leaning into Judaism, an occasional wish to play jazz, and a restless search for home. The project traces origins and outside influences, and the way layers of experience rub off on each other.

The practicals of the CD:

A solo album of contemporary pieces for clarinet and bass clarinet by the following composers:

• Toshio Hosokawa “Etude” for solo bass clarinet
• Isang Yun “Monologue” for solo bass clarinet
• Kurt Rohde “Slam” for solo bass clarinet
• Theo Loevendie “Duo” for solo bass clarinet
• Ronald Bruce Smith “Something Suspicious (small)” for bass cl and live electronics—commissioned with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
• Chen Yi “Monologue of the bio of Ah Q” for solo clarinet
• Tolga Tüzün “Along the Borderline, the breath and the gaze” for solo clarinet and electronics
• Jorge Liderman “Tfila” for solo clarinet
• Claudio Ambrosini “Cappricio detto l’ermaphrodite” for solo bass clarinet

For more details on the composers see the links on the composers' names above.

To be released in September 2012 on Karnatic Lab Records, an Amsterdam based label, with international distribution, including on iTunes and CD baby in the USA.

The Budget:

All the recording costs are paid for; the tracks are all professionally recorded, edited, and mastered (this is not a homemade production). It’s ready for release!! Now all that is needed are funds for the manufacturing cost, and publicity. This Kickstarter campaign is specifically for the manufacturing costs of the actual CDs and the packaging; any overflow funds raised will go to pay a publicist and for publicity support.

Total needed: $4186 (€3234)

Goal for Kickstarter campaign: $2250, which includes the $250 in fees from Kickstarter and Amazon payments processing, so $2000 goes directly to the project!

Rewards:

Join in and enjoy some fun rewards!!  Here are some samples; see the panel to the right for full details.

 

 http://www.karnaticlabrecords.com

 

More about this project:

In playing the clarinet and bass clarinet, I have access to some wonderful repertoire: Mozart, Brahms, Debussy… and I love this music. But this project is of a different nature. It’s personal and contemporary. It stretches the ways the instruments are used, going beyond pitch and rhythm as the primary drivers in some cases, often centering on musical ideas outside of Western music. I’ve worked with most of the composers on this CD (all except Yun and Ambrosini), and this is the first recording of several of these pieces: Hosokawa, Rohde, Smith, Liderman, and a re-release of Tüzün, made with the composer. The other pieces are already in the repertoire (Yun, Chen, Ambrosini), but relate to the newer works and are of personal importance to me.

trace  (trs) /trās/ [treys]

• n.1. A surviving mark, sign, or evidence of the former presence, existence, influence, or action of some agent or event; a vestige.
• 2. A beaten path or small road; a track.
• 3. To take a particular path or route.
• 4. A visible mark, such as a footprint, made or left by the passage of a person, animal, or thing.
• 5. A physical change in the brain presumed to be caused by a process of learning or memory.

• v.1. To make one's way along a trail or course.
• 2. To ascertain by investigation; find out; discover.
• 3. To find or follow the origin or development or progress of
• 4. To locate or discover by searching or researching evidence:
• 5. a. To draw (a line or figure); sketch; delineate.
• b. To draw (a pattern or line), especially with one’s finger or toe.
• 6. To copy by following lines seen through a sheet of transparent paper.
• 7. To follow closely (a prescribed pattern).
• 8. To make a design or series of markings on (a surface) by such pressure on a pattern.

 

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