As with any creative pursuit, even professional ones, there comes a point in any day when the art is put away and the rest of life must be attended to. What happens, though, when your frequent artistic collaborator is also your spouse? Where does the music end and the rest of life begin? Is there such a thing as work-life balance? When I first reached Chad Burrow by phone in his office at the University of Michigan, he expressed considerable doubt that we’d have much to talk about. He explained that he understood I’d be writing about collaborating with one’s spouse, “but I'm not sure if there ..read more

In my opinion, the most important aspect of musical artistry is sound. Sound quality is what people initially evaluate when they hear someone play. If a musical sound is unpleasant to the ear, it doesn’t matter if a beautiful phrase is crafted or blazing technique is demonstrated — few will listen for long. The final arbiter in all musical matters is the ear. Through the exercises outlined below, we’ll focus on three fundamental concepts essential in creating a beautiful sound: inhalation (full lung capacity), exhalation (with support), configuration of the oral cavity, and embouchure. It’s as ..read more

Corrado Giuffredi is one of the most prominent clarinetists on the global scene at the moment and has played with important orchestras since he was young. His videos on YouTube and Facebook reach thousands of fans within hours of being posted. A good number of students crowd his masterclasses and desire to study with him regularly. Principal Clarinet of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, he is one of the most important figures of the new Italian clarinet school. We recently discussed his past experiences, his exclusive instrument, and his advice to the next generation of clarinetists. Ang ..read more

Am I going to get claustrophobic? This was the question on Ellen Breakfield-Glick’s mind as she descended into the darkness of Mammoth Cave, her clarinet safely stowed in its case on her back, her arms full as she and her fellow musicians carried in all of their equipment, including chairs and music stands. Mammoth Cave was just the first stop of a two-month tour of national parks across the U.S. last summer. A septet, Music in the American Wild was the brainchild of flutist and director Emlyn Johnson, a school friend of Breakfield-Glick. Johnson had contacted her a full two years earlier to s ..read more

On Technology in Art and Teaching In conversation with Kim Werker There’s an occasional clicking noise coming through as I speak with Jose Franch-Ballester via Skype. I’m at my dining room table in Vancouver, Canada; he’s in his studio in Valencia, Spain. He’s telling me about the avant-garde multimedia concerto he’ll be premiering in January, 2018. Jose Franch-Ballester: There is this composer, Saül Gómez Soler; he’s from Valencia. About a year ago he started composing me a piece called “Apocryphos.” Apocryphos means tenebre, dark, mysterious, simulated. We have this idea of starting experime ..read more

I met Wes in 1977 when he joined the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO), but we didn’t start dating until he asked me out for my Halloween birthday a year later. I fell in love with that tall, handsome gentleman, and we were engaged by American Thanksgiving. We didn’t want to wait till summer to get married, so we planned our wedding — to be held at my parents’ suburban Chicago home — and honeymoon, to coincide with the ISO’s week-long vacation in February 1979. What we didn’t plan on was that two weeks prior to our wedding, Chicago would experience its second largest snowstorm in history ..read more

No relationship is as important to an orchestral principal bassoonist as the one we share with the single-reed specialist who sits to our right. From Beethoven to Brahms, Schubert to Schoenberg, the search for that perfect blend of bassoon and clarinet is an endless quest. Wes Foster and I sat side by side for twenty years. Day after day, season after season, we paid close attention to each other, to every shared phrase, to every unison, the vagaries of cane, the changes of weather. He even asked me for input on ligatures. We cultivated a single- minded approach to intonation, colour, and ..read more

When David Shifrin was a student, he told his teachers that he wanted to do many different kinds of work when he became a professional musician. They weren’t having it. “I enjoyed playing chamber music and doing solo work, and I enjoyed playing in the orchestra at school at Interlochen and Curtis. I wanted a career like that. I went to competitions and had some solo opportunities. I talked to my teachers about it, and pretty much everyone said that if you want to have a career playing the clarinet, the only path really is to practice for orchestra auditions. There’s a lot of truth in that, to ..read more

An efficient warm-up routine is one of the most overlooked components of regular practice. Professional athletes consider a thorough warm-up essential for peak performance, as do professional dancers, and clarinetists would be well advised to follow their examples. The muscles that we use to play the clarinet greatly bene t from a thoughtfully conceived and consistently practiced warm-up routine. Clarithenics provides an efficient and comprehensive warm-up that takes about fifty minutes to complete and focuses on three fundamental areas: Long tones Repetitive tonguing exercises Full-range sca ..read more

A faint pulse runs through Backun Musical Services. It’s not the day-to-day bustle or the constant hum of the massive CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines that manufacture Backun clarinets. It’s not the thrum of the Backun family, staff, or artists. This pulse harkens back to the earliest days of the company, long before the first Backun clarinet was ever conceived. A childhood friend of Morrie Backun’s, John Wesley (Wes) Foster shared a similar passion for the clarinet. The two grew up in Vancouver, Canada, studying under Dominic Lastoria, an archetypal clarinet teacher schooled in the Ita ..read more