Instant Winners, Vol. II: a new album for the E-flat clarinet, and a piece of mine inside it

The E-flat clarinet is the small, bright, often overlooked member of the clarinet family. Clarinetist Elizabeth Crawford has made it her mission to give it a bigger repertoire. Her album Instant Winners, Vol. II is the latest chapter, and I am honored that a piece of mine is on it.

The performers

Elizabeth first became fascinated by the E-flat clarinet as a master's student at the University of Michigan. She spent ten years with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, playing second, E-flat and bass clarinet, and she was Professor of Music Performance at Ball State University from 2006 to 2022. Her curiosity about the solo repertoire for the E-flat and D clarinets led her to create her own editions of five works with piano by Giuseppe Cappelli, now available from Potenza Music. In 2012 she commissioned her first solo piece, Crazy, by Scott McAllister. More commissions followed, and they are on her first E-flat CD, Instant Winners (Albany Records, 2018). Volume II adds five more commissions, with music from Europe, Cuba, the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel.

Elizabeth has performed and taught at festivals and universities around the world and has recorded at the BBC, Abbey Road, Angel and Olympic studios in London. She received the 2021 College of Fine Arts Creative Endeavor Award at Ball State for her research into the E-flat clarinet, and a Fulbright Award to the Escola de Música de Lisboa for her project on the repertoire for piccolo clarinet.

She is joined at the piano by Lori Rhoden and Cara Chowning. Lori is Professor of Music Performance and Coordinator of Piano Pedagogy and Group Piano at Ball State University. She has performed in China, Korea, Canada and across the United States, and she frequently collaborates with Elizabeth. Cara Chowning is equally at home in vocal and instrumental repertoire. She is a coach, music director and collaborative artist who has performed across the United States, South America and Europe. She is Assistant Professor of Teaching in Vocal Coaching at Ball State University.

The music

The album runs 73 minutes and 50 seconds, with 23 tracks.

Ailem Carvajal-Gómez, Suite Caribeana (2010). Five Cuban dances by Manuel Saumell and Ignacio Cervantes, with Cara Chowning at the piano.

Stephanie Berg, Rituals of Antiquity (2021). Four short movements: Of the Earth, Of the Flora and Fauna, Of the Air and Of the Sky.

Amelia Kaplan, Stutter. A single movement of just over five minutes.

Eva Wasserman-Margolis, The Children of the Tribes (2021). More on this one below.

Alfred Prinz, Sonata No. 1 for E-flat Clarinet and Piano (1998). Prinz was a member of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic for 50 years. He described his music as sitting between Bartók, Prokofiev and Hindemith. The outer movements set virtuosic clarinet lines against the piano, and the brooding second movement has elements of Bartók. Cara Chowning plays the piano.

Eleanor Trawick, Circling Back (2021). A half dozen rhythmic motives cycle through the piece. In the first half the form is additive, with the string of motives growing each cycle. In the second half it is subtractive, cycling through fewer and fewer motives.

Christopher Hobbs, Swiftly to Virginia (1981/1991). Written in 1981 for Virginia Anderson's final recital at Redlands University in California, and extensively revised in 1991 when its slow central section was added. Hobbs studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Cornelius Cardew and has been closely associated with the work of Erik Satie. Lori Rhoden plays the piano.

Alessio Fabra, Fantasia (2008). Alessio tried to give a "part" to every register and every sound technique of the instrument, simulating the sound of a chamber orchestra. It begins and ends with an "archaic savour" melody, and the central section has dance characteristics.

Violeta Dinescu, Ages-old sound of a flute (2021). Written for Elizabeth Crawford and inspired by the poetry of flutist and poet Ion Bogdan Stefanescu. Violeta describes it as an imaginary conversation between two musicians of special sensitivity. It has five movements.

Antonio Mazzoleni, Il Carnevale di Venezia Fantasia (19th c.). A Carnival of Venice fantasy, and one of only a few works for this small instrument. Cara Chowning plays the piano.

Children of the Tribes

And then there is my own piece, Children of the Tribes (2021). It is my most serious composition since 2000, and my first solo work for E-flat clarinet (it can also be played on the B-flat).

The title comes from a book for children that I began in 2014 and finished in 2022. The piece is built on two motifs, one for each of my granddaughters during their first year of life. It reflects my age, my experiences, my love of melody and my love for the child. It is my pathway to hearing their small voices.

I believe that if there is peace in the home, there will be peace everywhere.

The book is out now: The Children of the Tribes.