Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint

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Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint

My interview about playing and recording Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint is out in this month’s issue of The Clarinet. It accompanies Rachel Yoder’s comprehensive article about the work. To get a copy of the journal, go to: clarinet.org/back-issues/

I got the music from Steve before I was going to record it; it said Clarinet I, and it was in three movements. I looked at it and played it a little bit but I didn’t have any idea what it was supposed to be, exactly. Funny story: I was practicing that beginning first movement in the living room and my son came downstairs and said, “Dad, you’ve got to fix the record player. It’s skipping a lot.” He thought I was playing a record that was skipping!

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In Memoriam Lauren Keiser (1945-2020)

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He had the creative heart of a composer…
His publications sang with beauty, wisdom, sensitivity, imagination and vision.
He believed in music’s enduring value to be respected, admired, loved, and pure.
He believed in my teacher Kalman Opperman and championed his method books.
He believed in my wife Mika and published her transcription of Bach’s CHACCONE, attending her New York premiere at Carnegie Recital Hall.
He cherished the beautifully printed manuscripts of composers because he too was a composer.
He had faith in me and encouraged my transcriptions of Bach, Schubert, and Brahms, as well as contemporary colleagues such as Lukas Foss and Stephen Hartke.
His vision and energy were always positive, even at the end of his life talking about dreams such as a new edition of Brahms’ trio for piano, cello, and clarinet with Manny Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, and myself contributing to a “magnificent ultimate edition with finest quality paper, binding, covers, and printing.” He told me he was inspired by our recording of the trio and dreamed to create a definitive Lauren Keiser edition.
Lauren Keiser truly believed in the magic of the composer, manuscript, and uncompromising devotion to the printed manifestation of the music.

“Ahh, that’s what a composer wants to hear.”

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“Ahh, that’s what a composer wants to hear.”

When Elliott Carter’s GRA first appeared on the clarinet scene I decided this must be a piece I should try to play. Like many clarinetist I had gotten a lot of miles out of the old Stravinsky “Three Pieces” written some 84 years before Carter, and Gra had started showing up in master classes around the US and Canada. So I bought the music and started trying to figure out what to make of this work. Soon I put it on some recitals and was pleased to find audience reaction positive.

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Linzer Torte

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Linzer Torte

Baking for the holidays? I took classes at the Cordon Bleu in London and perfected a Linzer torte, among other desserts. Click the title above for the recipe.

I loved when I brought the Linzer torte to Mr. Rogers. He looked right at the camera and said to his young audience, “You see, boys and girls, daddies can cook too!” Then, when I told him we should keep it in the fridge until later, he immediately scooped it up and asked me to "play some music for carrying the Linzer torte to the refrigerator" and I obliged with 8 bars of Mozart’s clarinet concerto third movement and his delightful pianist immediately improvised a perfect accompaniment.

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Moon Landing

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On July 20, 1969 I was playing at a small chamber music festival on an island in Maine. After rehearsal, some of us had decided we should put a TV on the stage of our little concert shed to experience the landing on television. The set had a small black and white staticky screen barely discernible from the seats in the hall and so, after a while, I wandered outside. In the darkness of the Maine sky, the moon shone bright and clear. Looking up with eyes squinting I imagined I could see the Eagle landed. I thought I heard a distant smattering of applause. It must have come from inside the concert hall. Alone, I thought I heard the universe murmuring a brief bravo.

📷 NASA

New Recording

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Mika Stoltzman, marimbaist, and I are recording a new album! Steven Epstein, winner of 17 Grammys, is in charge of the sessions as producer and master of the most beautiful sound you can imagine. Hector Del Curto joins us on bandoneon and Pedro Giraudo joins on bass. The four days of recording include Bach's Chaconne arranged by Mika; Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue arranged by Mika and me for clarinet, marimba, and bandoneon; four more of Tom McKinley's Mostly Blues; John Zorn's Palimpsest written for Mika and me; and Piazzolla's Etude 5 and Fugue y Misterio.

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SASHA!

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Every musician who ever experienced the outrageous gravitational power of Alexander Schneider has his or her own orbit-changing, life-affirming tales about their encounters with this wild keeper of the flame of music. If you can, try to talk to someone who knew him, find a musician who played with him, for him. Anyone whose life in music was forever changed and electrified by Sasha will have their own shocking and exhilarating story about him.

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