Concerto

Written for virtuoso clarinetist Jon Manasse of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, Liebermann's new clarinet concerto is a 32-minute exploration of the depths and colors of clarinet concerto writing, featuring dazzling, sprightly passages. The present study score is large enough to read easily and the solo part with piano reduction are available separately.

Written for virtuoso clarinetist Jon Manasse of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, Liebermann's new clarinet concerto is a 32-minute exploration of the depths and colors of clarinet concerto writing, featuring dazzling, sprightly passages. The present study score is large enough to read easily and the solo part with piano reduction are available separately.

Written for virtuoso clarinetist Jon Manasse of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, Liebermann's new clarinet concerto is a 32-minute exploration of the depths and colors of clarinet concerto writing, featuring dazzling, sprightly passages. The present study score is large enough to read easily and the solo part with piano reduction are available separately.

The Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 110 was written for clarinetist Jon Manasse, and commissioned by a consortium of orchestras and organizations comprised of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra (which presented the world premiere performances in November, 2009), Bozeman, Juneau, Las Cruces, North State (California), Roanoke Symphony Orchestras, Erie and Evansville Philharmonic Orchestras, The Chappaqua Orchestra, Hanson Institute for American Music at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, Buffet Crampon USA, Vandoren Paris, River Concert Series at St. Mary?s College of Maryland & The Chesapeake Orchestra, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I have known Jon for many years, since our shared years as students at Juilliard. He performed and recorded my Clarinet Quintet, and I have always thought he is a fantastic player ? one of the absolute best. He was interested in my writing a clarinet concerto, and it fell to Tom Parker, Jon?s manager, to take on the heroic task of getting together a consortium ? of 14 different orchestras and organizations ? that commissioned the work. The concerto, my first for clarinet and orchestra, was completed during the summer of 2009. It is scored for piccolo, with pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones and tuba; plus timpani, two percussionists playing on a variety of instruments that include slapstick, bass drum, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, ratchet, woodblock, cowbell, jawbone, maracas, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, gourd, tambourine, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba and vibraphone; harp, one keyboardist playing both piano and celesta, and the normal string complement. Orchestral clarinets are absent. The work is in three movements. The first is an Andante that gives way to a Presto, ending with a restatement of the Andante the second, marked Larghissimo with a central section of variations marked Grave; and the last, an Allegro with a pronounced Latin influence.