ClarinetFest® 2025 in Review
ClarinetFest® 2025 Day 1 Round-Up
2025 ClarinetFest ICA Research Competition
by Natalie Groom
Featured Headliner Artists: Opening Night Concert
by Jeremy Ruth
2025 ClarinetFest ICA Research Competition
By Natalie Groom
Every year the ICA solicits proposals for presentations (such as papers or lecture-recitals) on any topic related to the clarinet for the annual research competition. This year, the finalists were Charlie Zhang, Sarah Lucas-Page, and Bixby Kennedy.
The ICA expresses its appreciation for the adjudicators of the Research Competition:
Presider: Madelyn Moore
Judges: Janghyun Kim, Sarah Manasreh-Decker, Natalie Szabo, Nadia Sofokleous
Charlie Zhang: Quantitative Analysis of the Effect of Reed Storage Humidity on Clarinet Timbre (Awarded 2nd Place
Charlie Zhang just graduated from Westminster Schools, and he is a rising freshman at Northwestern University. He presented Quantitative Analysis of the Effect of Reed Storage Humidity on Clarinet Timbre.
Zhang’s research sought to address the question: is there a way to improve reed performance with humidity storage practices? Could humidity storage be used to improve the timbral quality of reeds and their consistency?
In describing the birth of his research, Zhang discussed reed quality as it related to vibratory features, cane quality and density, and warping. Zhang noted no studies have examined in depth reed storage humidity as a critical variable in maintaining the timbral quality of reeds.
Zhang constructed a reed storage experiment to assess the effect humidity had on the timbre of a reed. He used different levels of humidity in reed storage: 32%, 49%, 58%, 62%, 65%, 69%, 72%, 75%, and 85%. These humidity percentages were selected because they were the retail options for Boveda humidity packs. Reeds were stored with a Boveda humidity pack in glass boxes that had an airtight seal. Nine reeds were stored at each percentage humidity level, for a total of 81 reeds.
In Zhang’s methodology, he ensured the same equipment was used in the same location in each test session and the same play test was used on each reed. The analysis focused on timbral quality of the reed, which meant “timbre” had to be defined for the study.
Timbre was defined in three dimensions: bright/dark (thin vs. woody), slow/fast response (immediacy of sound, duration of attack), and round/nasal (round vs. tinny). These three dimensions were then linked to objective “audio descriptors” to make quantitative analysis possible: Spectral Centroid, Attack Time, and Odd/Even Harmonic Ratio. Reeds were playtested, the audio recording from the test was fed into a computer program, and the program analyzed the sound based on those three audio descriptor dimensions.
Some unique problems arose, such as the 84% humidity reeds growing mold after some time. Zhang found himself most comfortable using the 32% humidity but noted that this was personal preference and specific to his equipment and his geographic climate.
What trends were discovered in the statistical analysis? Zhang demonstrated there was an inverse relationship between humidity and the three audio dimensions. As storage humidity decreased, the Spectral Centroid increased (a darker sound), the Odd/Even Harmonic ratio increased (a rounder sound), and Attack Time increased (a less responsive reed).
Sarah Lucas-Page: Reshaping the Stage: Fat Body Politics and the Clarinet Performance World (Awarded 1st Place)
Sarah Lucas-Page just graduated from Western Washington University and is beginning her doctorate at University of North Carolina – Greensboro this fall. She presented Reshaping the Stage: Fat Body Politics and the Clarinet Performance World.
Lucas-Page’s research is centered on how society’s weight-bias has shaped her personal experience and the experience of others in the classical music industry. She strives to challenge existing norms, advocate for change, and encourage more acceptance and representation in the clarinet community.
To establish some shared vocabulary as an introduction to her research, Lucas-Page began by offering definitions for terms like fat, fatphobia, weight bias/anti-fat bias/anti-fatness, and microaggressions. At the inception of her project, she stated she found herself asking these research questions:
Why do employers factor weight into hiring? Was my weight factored? Have my professors factored this in? Have my friends, family, and colleagues experienced weight-related stigma?
Lucas-Page surveyed multiple scholarly sources that demonstrated societal weight bias negatively impacts hiring opportunities, mentorship opportunities, and perceptions of worthiness or work ethic. Next, she sought anecdotal evidence. In August 2024, she distributed a survey in the clarinet community via the ICA Facebook group to better understand people’s anecdotal experiences with and relationship to weight and careers in music. There were 76 respondents, and the majority of responses were anonymous.
In alignment with the scholarly sources she had read, Lucas-Page noticed the anecdotal evidence similarly demonstrated discrimination and judgement around weight, with one respondent even indicating they experienced positive increases in income and respect in the workplace after losing a significant amount of weight.
Lucas-Page turned next to weight bias in fashion, establishing shared definitions of terms like plus size clothing and straight size clothing. A prominent fashion couturier from the early 1900s greatly influenced anti-fatness trends and bias in the fashion industry in the USA. Fast forward to today, and this translates to modern musicians experiencing difficulty finding plus sized professional attire. Many mainstream stores do not carry plus sizes, so the shopper must buy online or order custom clothing. The availability of plus size clothing is a stressor. Additionally, plus sizes are more expensive, a phenomenon known as the fat tax, which creates a socioeconomic barrier.
These issues surrounding plus size clothing availability and affordability were then tied to Lucas-Page’s survey results. Respondents shared stories of anxiety, like not being able to find clothes in a new town when on tour or having to pay out of pocket for tailored clothing.
Social stigma was addressed next. The anecdotal evidence revealed responding musicians felt fat shamed through comments from colleagues and hiring committees, as well as messages on social media. Their weight was affiliated with negative traits; they felt unjustly judged as lazy, sloppy, incompetent, or untalented.
In closing, Lucas-Page then described her own experience with weight-based discrimination and bullying, and she left the audience with a call to action—keep talking about this issue. If there isn’t wider dialogue about weight bias, it becomes harder to study and harder to dismantle.
Bixby Kennedy: Completing Stravinsky’s Arrangement of L’Histoire du Soldat for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano
Bixby Kennedy is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Louisiana State University. He performed and presented Completing Stravinsky’s Arrangement of L’Histoire du Soldat for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano. Though his career has a performance focus, Kennedy is an experienced arranger, and he used that skill set to arrange L’Histoire du Soldat. The desired outcome is to make the entire drama accessible for performance in a reduced instrumentation, making it possible to perform with narrator and actors with the trio instrumentation.
In 1918, Stravinsky wrote L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) for septet. In 1919, Stravinsky arranged five of the 13 movements as the Suite, a trio reduction for violin, clarinet, and piano. Kennedy arranged the remaining movements Stravinsky did not include, about 45 minutes of music, to complete the entire drama for trio.
The project was a combination of in-depth research of Stravinsky’s writing style and Kennedy’s orchestration in Stravinsky’s style. The lecture recital presentation began with the Music for Scene II. Featuring beautiful sweeping lines in the violin and clarinet, the piano peppered in the other septet voices. Kennedy’s technique was to use the violin as the sustaining voice, and he noted it was challenging to create an idiomatic and playable piano part while honoring as much as the original score as possible.
In The Royal March, Kennedy described and defined “musical icon” as a melody tied to a specific instrumental color. In Stravinsky’s septet, this was usually found in the trumpet line throughout The Royal March. In Kennedy’s arrangement, he gave this line to the clarinet. A playful movement, the clarinet carried the bouncy melody most of the time, with the violin punctuating the rhythmic content of the piano. There was rapid voice exchange which created an exciting aesthetic.
For the second half of the presentation, Kennedy discussed the representation of percussion in the arrangements. He used the opening measures of the Tango, which is scored only for violin and percussion, to demonstrate Stravinsky’s interpretation of the percussion part. First, the piano part was presented without the “disruptive tones,” which Stravinsky used to disguise the sense of actual pitch in the trio reduction by putting the percussion-imitative dissonant notes in the lowest range of the piano, lending a percussive rather than harmonic texture.
Another example of how Stravinsky represented the percussion in his trio arrangement was in the Ragtime. Two types of gestures, “involved” and “economical” (as Kennedy described them), were used to represent percussion. There were even occasions where the clarinet carried some of the percussion parts. Kennedy’s ensemble performed an excerpt from rehearsal 33 to 34 to demonstrate.
The final, and most problematic arrangement by Kennedy’s account, was Triumphal March of the Devil. Kennedy crafted a piano part that could capture the percussion part, using minor second and major seventh intervals to mimic the sound of two drums of slightly different pitch or timbre. This was modeled on Stravinsky’s orchestration in the Tango.
Kennedy ended with a full performance of Triumphal March of the Devil. The violin part, since it is so involved in the original septet, remained virtually unchanged. The piano primarily took the double bass and percussion writing while covering the remaining wind parts.
At the conclusion, Kennedy reiterated his efforts to stay as true as possible to Stravinsky’s compositional style in the arranging process. Kennedy continues to explore publishing options, and individuals interested in performing Kennedy’s arrangement can contact him directly in the meantime at [email protected].
Featured Headliner Artists: Opening Night Concert
By Jeremy Ruth
The first day of ClarinetFest 2025 capped off with a phenomenal concert of chamber music, featuring works representing a wide range of styles from classical era standards to premiere performances of new commissions. The Orchard Ensemble (Mark Miller and Andres Bravo, violin; Ute Miller, viola; Laura Ospina, cello) worked with every featured clarinetist and provided sensitive, responsive playing in each piece, showcasing their cohesion as a quartet and their ability to let individual parts shine through when needed. The featured clarinetists were Calvin Falwell (bass clarinet), Gregory Raden, Lara Díaz (bass clarinet), Jon Manasse, and Gloria Uberto. Each played superbly well and brought their own distinctive voice to their particular piece, elaborated upon below.
Phantasy Quintet, op. 93 (1935) – York Bowen (1884-1961)
Calvin Falwell and the Orchard Ensemble opened the concert with York Bowen’s Phantasy Quintet. Falwell’s rich, yet mellow bass clarinet sound blended beautifully with the Orchard Ensemble throughout every register, and all of them evoked a sense of subtle mystery in the piece through their sensitive playing. Falwell also had moments to showcase his technical virtuosity, and in every such moment he maintained his smooth, even style while making difficult passages sound effortless. The ensemble always seemed to be well-balanced, whether in more subdued sections or when playing larger, more expressive gestures.
Clarinet Quintet in f-sharp minor, op. 10 (1906) – Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1913)
Gregory Raden and the Orchard Ensemble closed out the first half of the concert with Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet. This piece provided an immediate stylistic contrast to the previous work, and Raden’s sound shone over the top of the string quartet like a jewel on a bed of velvet. Throughout the four movements of this work, Raden and the Orchard Ensemble portrayed different musical characters exceptionally well – in the scherzo alone, they could be cheeky one moment and melancholy the next, all while maintaining strong, unified ensemble playing.
Poema (for bass clarinet and string quartet) (2024) – David Bennett Thomas (b. 1969)
Lara Díaz and the Orchard Ensemble kicked off the second half of the concert with the premiere performance of Poema, commissioned by and dedicated to Díaz. This work presented another nice stylistic shift from the pieces in the first half, showcasing a lot of nervous energy in the string parts and interesting stylistic shifts between long sustains and flitting, bird-like flourishes in the bass clarinet part, which Díaz performed with a light, deft touch. Throughout the different sections of the piece, the ensemble always captured the various moods and characters the composer called for, shifting from a more lyrical, neo-romantic style to heavier, groove-based playing as needed. In additional to her exceptional collaborative playing within the ensemble, Díaz had some beautiful soloistic moments in the cadenza-like linking sections, where she took her time and let the music breathe.
Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 (1789) – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Jon Manasse and the Orchard Ensemble continued the concert with Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Right away, Manasse demonstrated amazing control and subtlety with his dynamics, while maintaining his characteristically beautiful sound. All of Manasse’s phrases seemed to be thought out and carefully shaped — his phrase endings would sometimes fade into almost nothing and he’d still somehow maintain a beautiful tonal center. Manasse’s tone and articulation had a perfect roundness for Mozart’s classical style, and every diminuendo on an ascending line was executed beautifully, adding just a hint of tension and musical interest throughout. Manasse and the Orchard Ensemble took one of the standards of clarinet repertoire and breathed new life into it through their exceptional performance.
La Muerte del Angel – Astor Piazzolla, arr. Flavio Mattea
Gloria Uberto and the Orchard Ensemble concluded the concert in spectacular fashion, performing Flavio Mattea’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s La Muerte del Angel. Uberto brought a soaring, lively energy to this showpiece, keeping it playful while maintaining constant drive. Uberto’s flexible, lithe playing filled the piece with character, making this a perfect ending to a fabulous opening night concert.
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