04.21.24 Abby Rodriguez, Bass Clarinet

Student Recital Series

Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall

2023 – 2024 Season

Sunday,April 21st at 3:05 PM

Abby Rodriguez, bass clarinet

Kathleen Crecco, piano

In memory of Frank Rodriguez

Wisteria (2024)

Reflections on a Spoon (2024)

World premiere performance

Emma Fusco, flute

Liz Combs, alto flute

David Bobowski and Libby Sheldon, clarinet

Three Klezmer Dances (2024)

Dobriden

Zay gezunt!

Dobranotsh

World premiere performance

David Bobowski (b. 2002)

Cole Fortier (b.2001)

Adam Beiter (b.2003)

Adam Beiter, accordion

Jordon Gyarmathy, string bass

World premiere performance

Abby Rodriguez is from the studio of Dr. Julianne Kirk Doyle

Program Notes

This Program was inspired by two of my favorite Bass Clarinet solos; Dúo para un solista by Dr.Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez and Reconciliation by my colleague Tyler Mazone.

During mysophomore year,I hadtheideato programa recital featuringcomposers within crane,whether it be students, alumni, faculty, etc. At the time, I honestly did not think it was possible to program such a thing for solo Bass Clarinet; as the instrument is not commonly composed for. The two Bass Clarinet solos Dúo para un solista and Reconciliation made me realize this program was very much possible, so I started reaching out to colleagues/friends who are part of the composition studio to see if they were interested in composing something for one of the low clarinets. I wanted the music to represent the composers as much as possible, so all I asked from the composer was that there was a clarinet part I could play in their piece. Instrumentation, style, mood, etc. was all up to the composer. I ended up with 3 wonderful pieces that I am honored to premier.

This recital is in memory of my grandfather Frank Rodriguez, who passed away last month.

Wisteria

This piece began as a commission for a friend and fellow clarinet player of mine, Abby Rodriguez, during the senior year of our undergraduate. Usually when going into projects, I have some sort of theme to base the work on, but didn't here at first. The ending section was originally jolting and rhythmically syncopated, but I felt that the material made the piece feel inconsistent overall. Instead, I re-wrote it into the delicate ending it now is. This is when I was inspired to think of something to represent the piece. Wisteria is something that I've always found beautiful, so I thought it would be perfect for this beautiful piece. Not every musical idea necessarily evokes wisteria, mostly because much of the music was written before deciding on a title. I just think it's a nice visual to add to the emotional content. Performers may think of the drooping flowers if they wish to. In this piece, I personally think of longing, innocence, and a cycle of actions that one can't escape. Program Note By David

Reflections On a Spoon

Bobowski

Reflection in a Spoon is a short and lush work written for a quintet comprised of Clarinets and Flutes. I was interested in finding ways to blend the richly smooth and spacious tone qualities of both instrument groups (particularly in their lower registers). I chose to explore this by bookending the piece with two hymn-like passages where all five instruments play in a similar register. The tone quality and the melancholically elusive harmonic language I felt represented the chrome-colored sheen of a spoon. Additionally, the voice leading between the parts subtly twist and distort the phrases much like the surface of a spoon is concave from the manipulation of metal. Our own reflections in spoons on their front side portray us upside down, while the back side could enlarge our image. I intended to represent the loss of reality of one's reflection in a spoon with a bit of surrealism and sombreness in the hymn-like passages, and then with playfulness and passion in the middle section. Program Note By Cole

Fortier

Three Klezmer Dances

My earliest excursions into the rich and varied world of klezmer music came just after my 11th birthday. Marty Kerker, the keyboardist of the house band at Bualo’s Congregation Beth Abraham where I attended Shabbat services as a child, was also the leader of a klezmer and folk fusion band called Zetz (meaning to jab or punch in Yiddish). Upon discovering their existence, I ripped a copy of their rst selfreleased CD, Hine Ma Tov... How Good It Is, to my family’s computer and learned all the songs by heart. To my delight, I was invited to sing with the group at the Syracuse Jewish Music and Cultural Festival on September 14, 2014, and have cherished the memory of that performance ever since.

While pursuing my undergraduate degree at the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York, I was blessed to be able to approach klezmer once again, this time from an instrumentalist’s perspective as the accordion player in a trio consisting of myself, Abby Rodriguez, and Jordon Gyarmathy–the ensemble for which I have composed this set of dances. Our collaboration came about spontaneously due to a need for live music at Congregation Beth El’s Jewish Food Festival in Potsdam, and soon morphed into a paid engagement for a local Chanukah party. Together, we pored over pages of free arrangement scores courtesy of Dick Schoeller’s online repository, analyzing the tonality and form of the classic greats. Through this process, I would come to understand old familiar tunes in completely new ways: for example, my perception of “Oyfn Pripetshik” was transformed by seeing it transcribed with no anacrusis, as I had always subconsciously “felt” the melody in a syncopated fashion beginning on beat 3 of the anacrusis (so strong was the metaphorical “pull” of the timeless tune). Interestingly enough, I would later learn that Mr. Kerker had grown up in Potsdam, that Congregation Beth El housed a library named after his family, and that Zetz had played a show in the North Country region in 2011 in honor of Crane’s 125th anniversary. I felt moved that we had been able to give back to the community where he began his journey, and that we were discovering so much more about ourselves as artists in the process.

As I conducted more research into the background of dierent klezmer dance styles, I found it fascinating that much of the early klezmer repertoire was categorized according to specic social functions corresponding not only to dierent parts of the day, but also to dierent feelings, moods, or remarkable events. For instance, a zay gezunt was a wish for good health, functioning almost as a musical version of a toast or other casual blessing; a dobriden wished its audience a good morning, and dobranotsh (or a gute nakht in some cases) a good night. It was easy for me to transpose these mental images into the modern day by imagining a living, breathing “alarm clock ensemble” barging in to rouse the listener à la Versailles, or a goodbye hug that lasts a bit longer than planned in a too-packed front entrance hallway. More than anything, though, the social functions of these dances immediately brought to mind the caring and outgoing mindset of a small, tight-knit community, and provided the perfect inspiration for a piece meant to encapsulate the immensely fullling experience of getting to be a part of the Jewish community of St. Lawrence County.

Program Note By

Adam Beiter