 Dr. Andrew Seigel |
“This will be my first solo recital here at Fredonia since joining the faculty last year,” commented Dr. Seigel, “though I've played with the Fredonia Woodwind Quintet, and in other faculty chamber ensembles. The program includes all 20th century music; the first half is comprised of works by two prominent female composers, the second half could easily be described as ‘jazzy.’”
The program opens with a work for clarinet and viola called, Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale, composed in 1941 by Rebecca Clarke, and continues with Fantasy (...those harbor lights...) written for clarinet and piano in 1983 by Joan Tower. After a short break, the concert continues with William Bolcom’s Little Suite of Four Dances composed in 1984 for E-flat clarinet and piano. Other works include God Bless the Child for solo bass clarinet by Arthur Herzog and Billie Holiday, as realized by Eric Dolphy, and Sonata composed by Leonard Bernstein for clarinet and piano.
“I'll be performing on not just the "standard" B-flat clarinet, but also on the bass clarinet and the E-flat clarinet, which is smaller than the regular clarinet and sometimes called the piccolo clarinet,” said Seigel. “The Bolcom work was written to add to a very small body of work for E-flat clarinet and piano. The pieces evoke traditional dance forms (Rag, Apache, Waltz, Soft-Shoe), and are both light and very clever.
God Bless the Child is a realization of a solo improvisation that Eric Dolphy performed a number of times. Essentially, he took the melody and chord changes of the song that Herzog and Holiday wrote, and created his own impression of the song. Dolphy is famous for being a saxophonist who was also comfortable performing and improvising on flute and bass clarinet - he was one of the first to use bass clarinet in the jazz idiom.
Bernstein’s Sonata was his first published work, finished when he was just 22.”
Attached: Andrew Seigel photo
