Winner, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award
Commissioned by the New York Chamber Ensemble, Alan R. Kay, Music Director.
World Premiere performance by Alan R. Kay and the New York Chamber Ensemble
June 14, 2005 at the Cape May Music Festival, Cape May, NJ.
Dedicated to Alan R. Kay

For solo clarinet with flute (doubling piccolo), bass clarinet, horn, trumpet (doubling flugelhorn), piano, violin, viola, cello and bass.

Jazz was my first musical love, but over time I became increasingly frustrated with its boundaries and preconceptions, especially during the period when I was completing a performance degree in jazz guitar at New York University. For a good five years, I excised jazz from my musical life, and I reoriented myself as a composer of music for concert instruments.

It was the clarinetist Alan R. Kay who encouraged me to re-examine my relationship to jazz in the Concertino that he commissioned for his concert series at the Cape May Music Festival. Within a three-movement structure that honors the classical concerto tradition, I explored distinct aspects of jazz that had inspired and informed my musical voice.

Certain elements of the first movement, Ring tone, were inspired by saxophonist Wayne Shorter, especially his Brazilian-themed album Native Dancer, one of the most lyrical and refreshing records I know. The “Ring tone” theme, introduced in the opening measures by the violin and viola, is an exact transcription of Alan’s cell phone ring, a sound I came to know well when we shared an office at the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The second movement, Ballad, is a reflection on the classic show tunes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. The last movement, Closer, revisits the brand of jazz I used to write and perform with my band.