Harlaxton Music Festival, UK

  

The Harlaxton Manor

From July 1-3, I visited the Harlaxton Music Festival in its inagural year (launched by my colleagues from the Larchmere String Quartet), where three of my students from TTU were the chamber music participants. It was a real pleasure to reside in this amazing castle, coaching some hard-working students and playing music with them, too!  

Harlaxton gardens

The atrium on the rear side of the Manor

Coaching my student Anjali's Stamitz group

The cocnert venue at the Harlaxton Manor

My student Sarah working on Mozart's Clarinet Quintet

Sarah performing Mozart Clarinet Quintet

On Thursday evening, I also performed the charming "Clarinet Quartet, No. 1" by the American clarinetist and composer Sean Osborn with my students at the St. Wulfram's Church. After the concert, we all went out to a local pub in downtown Grantham! 

St. Wulfram's Church

My student Torey performing Mendelssohn's Concert Piece at the St. Wulfram's Church

Selfie with my students before the evening concert! 

Downtown Grantham

Post-concert celebration! 

All three of my students visited me in London after the Festival, and I took them out to a gastropub near the Covent Garden where we all had some great pies and ale! 

with TTU clarinet students at a gastropub near the Covent Garden

2015 Summer Plan

An unrelated image taken several years ago in Minneapolis, MN. 

May 13-18 - New York City and Alpine, NJ

May 30-June 5 - Chapel Hill, NC

June 20-25 - Washington D.C. and Northern VA 

June 26-30 - Greensboro, NC

July 1-3 - Harlaxton, UK 

July 4-8 - London, UK

July 8-19 - Greensboro, NC

July 20-26 - Madrid, Spain 

July 27-August 1 - Greensboro and Raleigh, NC

I am looking forward to a busy but fun-filled summer! In May, I will be in Alpine, NJ and NYC, visiting friends and family as well as doing some consulting works. I was also invited to be an Artist-in-Residence at local youth orchestra in Murfreesboro and will work with young musicians there at the end of the month. I will need to find some time here and there to work on edits for two of my upcoming CDs (enahke's Piazzolla CD on MSR and Krehl's chamber music on Naxos) as well as a clarinet textbook for my studio.  

In June, I will return to Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop (my sixth year). Aside from working with many long-time participants and friends, I am excited to welcome my friends from the Larchmere String Quartet to be this year's ensemble-in-residence with whom I will perform Stephan Krehl's Clarinet Quintet, op. 19. I am also looking forward to performing a series of recitals in Northern VA (Lyceum Chamber Music Series) and D.C. area with Grace, featuring the world premiere performance of Peter Lieuwen's Bright River for Clarinet and Piano (the work we commissioned), as well as works by Bernstein, Devienne, Martinu, and more. Later in June, I will take up a residence at my friend Jacob's house in Greensboro, NC. with Grace, who will serve on the piano faculty at the Eastern Music Festival for the next five weeks. 

July will be a very busy month for me, as I will make couple of overseas trips. First, I will be visiting my students at the Harlaxton Chamber Music Festival earlier that month. You can read about this on my recent blogpost. I am also excited to collaborate with my friend and amazing pianist Sasha Karpeyev. Sasha will perform with me in Madrid at this year's ICA Conference in Madrid, and we will work on a number of projects (including our US performance in March 2016) during my stay in London. I have not seen Sasha since our time together at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival back in 2011 and am really looking forward to our collaboration. After couple weeks off in Greensboro, I will be back in Europe to be a part of ICA ClarinetFest in Madrid, where I will present the European premiere of Peter Lieuwen's new work for clarinet and piano. 

For more details and specific dates/times/venues, please visit my calendar page. I am much relieved that I will be back home in August to get ready for 2015-16. It will be a demanding academic year with 19 students and 5 senior student recitals as well as some major performance opportunities for me. Please stay tuned for some great projects planned for the next season!

Harlaxton International Music Festival

Harlaxton Music Festival

I am extremely proud of my students, Torey Hart, Sarah McMichen, and Anjali Sivaainkaran, who are accepted to Harlaxton International Music Festival in UK (June 28-July 5) and named recipients of TTU's URECA grant ($2,500 each). They will travel to UK this summer to study with my colleagues from the Larchmere String Quartet and other international faculty members and perform some great chamber music. I will travel to Harlaxton as well during my London residency that week to work with the students at the festival. We spent many hours preparing the application materials for the festival and grants, and I am thrilled that all three will be able to make this work in the end!

Congratulations to my students, Torey, Anjali and Sarah, who will attend the Festival as URECA fellows!