|
EVANSVILLE - Composers once relied on aristocrats, nobles and other privileged patrons with ample purses to commission classical works such as the Ludwig van Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn compositions featured in Saturday's Evansville Philharmonic concert at The Victory.
Especially in today's economy, however, artists and orchestras are increasingly banding together to underwrite commissions for new music such as composer Lowell Liebermann's Clarinet Concerto, which will premiere here Saturday on the same program as Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides" Overture and Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony No. 3.
Liebermann wrote the piece for clarinetist Jon Manasse, who will play concerto's Indiana premiere with the orchestra. But it took a national consortium of 14 organizations, including the Evansville Philharmonic, to cover the commission.
Jon Manasse
Lowell Liebermann
In addition to the Evansville orchestra, consortium members include the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, which presented the concerto's world premiere in November, and orchestras and musical organizations in locations ranging from Alaska and California to Virginia and Massachusetts.
That makes sense, "because orchestras are reluctant to take the entire responsibility for a commission," Liebermann explained in a phone interview. "They find there's a big difference in (each member's) financial responsibility if 10 or 15 or 18 orchestras get together with a commission instead of just one or three."
While Liebermann continues to compose for individual orchestras, opera companies, universities and individuals, consortium commissions "are getting more and more common," he said. "My third piano concerto was commissioned by 18 different orchestras."
The Clarinet Concerto is unusual, however, in that Manasse's manager pulled together the collective to underwrite the commission for the artist.
Liebermann and Manasse met as students at the Juilliard School in New York, but didn't get to know one another well until later. Manasse went on to record Liebermann's Clarinet Quartet before the concerto commission.
Manasse will play the only clarinet in the concerto, which will include a pair of percussionists playing a bank of instruments, including a slapstick, bass drum, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, ratchet, woodblock, cowbell, jawbone, maracas, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, gourd, tambourine, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba and vibraphone. The composer didn't write anything personal for Manasse, "other than to know that Jon was a clarinetist who could do anything, so I had total freedom," Liebermann said. "He really is amazing."
IF YOU GO
What: Guest soloist Jon Manasse will be featured in the Indiana premiere of Lowell Liebermann's Clarinet Concerto, performing with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra on a program that will include Felix Mendelssohn's "The Hebrides" and Ludwig van Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony No. 3.
When: Box office opens 5:30 p.m. Manasse and Liebermann will join Alfred Savia, the orchestra's music director, in a pre-concert talk beginning at 6:45 p.m., and the performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The Victory
Tickets: $15 to $61 for adults, $5 to $61 for children 12 and younger, $10.50 at the door for students after 6:30 p.m.
Information: Call 425-5050 for reservations or information or go to www.evansvillephilharmonic.org online.
Broadcast: A digital recording of the concert will air at 7 p.m., March 7, on WNIN 88.3FM
Download: As part of the orchestra's two-year focus on the Beethoven symphonies, the Philharmonic will make a digital recording its performance of the Symphony No. 3 available for free download off its Web site at www.evansvillephilharmonic.org at a later date.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/feb/18/clarinetist-to-premiere-concerto-for-orchestra/
|
