ABOUT THE MUSIC
Paul Dean (b. 1966)
Lockdown Miniatures No. 8 (2020) WORLD PREMIERE
1) A Celebration of 50 Miniatures in 50 Days
2) A Dining Room Waltz Whilst Hitting All the Furniture
3) Ok, So I'm Dying. Look After Mum.
4) Frantic (Ode to the Empty Shelves)
5) To the Memory of the Angels
6) In Memory of 316,370
7) Fast Lane (To Nowhere)
Like so many in the music world, I was gearing up for a busy year of writing and performing in 2020. By mid-March, the Covid-19 pandemic had shut down almost all music performances in the world and the premieres of my two new works had been cancelled. I was left with two choices - turn the creative mind off for the year or develop something new that enabled me to have an artistic and creative outlet that kept me going whilst allowing me to tell the story of lockdown from the perspective of a composer. On the 18th of March, I began writing a series of miniatures for friends and colleagues who were in lockdown. Most had lost their creative opportunities and jobs in 2020 and were partnered with another musician in the same position. I allowed myself up to 90 minutes first thing in the morning to complete one miniature, then sent the work immediately to the dedicatees. My plan was that the spirits that were trapped by the blankness of diaries all of a sudden had a reason to get their instruments out of their cases. By the 3rd of June, I had finished 70 miniatures in 70 days for ten groups of friends - all duos except for a trio written for a husband and wife team joined by their wonderfully talented son on violin. The eighth set of miniatures were for my former student and wonderful clarinetist Justin Beere and partner, pianist Michael Curtain.
Program Note © Paul Dean
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Johannes Brahms (1883-1897)
Clarinet Sonata in Eb, Op. 120 No. 2 (1894)
1) Allegro amabile
2) Allegro appassionato
3) Andante con moto - Allegro
The two Clarinet Sonatas Op. 120 were written in 1894 and dedicated to the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. Brahms had officially retired from composing in 1890. The following year, he was so captivated by Mühlfeld's playing that he emerged from his creative solitude to create several works - the Clarinet Trio Op. 114, Clarinet Quintet Op. 115, and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120. The keys of the two Sonatas mirror the keys (F minor and Eb major) of Weber's two mighty Clarinet Concertos, composed more than eighty years earlier. These were the last pieces of chamber music that Brahms' composed before his death in 1897 and are imbued with an incredibly profound beauty and sense of pathos, the music of one of histories great composers nearing the end of his life.
Program Note © Alex Raineri
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Jörg Widmann (b. 1973)
Fünf Bruchstücke (1997)
German composer, conductor and clarinettist, Jorg Widmann is a signficiant figure in contemporary music. His clarinet works are particularly idiomatic and they often appear in programming all around the world. This collection of five miniatures are among his first published works. Despite their brevity, each of the five little pieces explores a vast universe of instrumental colour. With a penchant for showcasing the extremities of both clarinet and piano, Widmann makes use of several 'extended techniques' which expand (or perhaps, explode) the traditional sonic possibilities of the instruments. The music is either transcendentally slow and sparse, or thunders with a chaotic energy that renders terror in the heart of any brave performer of this music.
Program Note © Alex Raineri
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Catherine Likhuta (b. 1981)
Motions (2008)
Motions is a piece for clarinet and piano in four movements. This is the first piece I wrote after moving to the United States from Ukraine in 2005. As a consequence, it reflects the controversial feelings one may have when arriving in a new country and entering a new society, and in the case of the U.S., a wildly different pace of life. Each of the four movements has its own character, form, and an embedded set of images, while forming a unified musical journey. There is no accompanist in this work: the two instruments are partners in a conversation, or rather an argument.
Program Note © Catherine Likhuta
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Brisbane born and bred clarinetist Paul Dean is widely regarded as one of Australia’s foremost musicians in his multiple capacities as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, composer and Artistic Director. He is Associate Professor and Head of Winds at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. He is a founding member of the Endeavour Trio and co-Artistic Director of Ensemble Q with Trish Dean.
Paul was the Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) from 2010 – 2015 and a Principal Clarinet with the Australian World Orchestra. Paul was the Artistic Director of the Four Winds Festival and the Tutti Beijing International Youth Music Festival and was also the founder and Artistic Director of the Southern Cross Soloists, the Bangalow Music Festival and the Sunwater and Stanwell Winter Music School.
Between 1987 and 2000 he was Principal Clarinet with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with the Orchestra on over 40 occasions. Paul has performed as soloist with the Queensland, Melbourne, West Australian, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia and Southern Sinfonia in NZ, and the Trondheim Symfoniker (Norway). As a chamber musician he has been guest artist with the Navarra Quartet, the Doric Quartet, the Heath Quartet, the Australian String Quartet, the Goldner String Quartet, the Grainger Quartet, the Flinders Quartet, and the Tin Alley Quartet. He has performed as soloist at many Festivals throughout world including the Oxford May Music Festival, the Huntington Music Festival, Alpine Classic Switzerland, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Coramba Chamber Music Festival, Camden Haven Music Festival, and the Melbourne, Christchurch, Brisbane, Queensland, Perth, and Sydney Festivals. Most recently Paul toured Portugal and Hamburg with Trish Dean, Jack Liebeck and celebrated Portugese pianist Filipe Pinto-Riveiro.
Paul’s recording of the Mozart and Brahms clarinet works for the Melba label, and the clarinet music of English composer Benjamin Frankel for German label CPO have won high praise from critics around the world. Paul was Composer in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and has also been commissioned to write works for the Aspen Music Festival (Colorado) and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for a horn concerto for Andrew Bain, Principal Horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Melbourne Ensemble, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Q, Ensemble Francaix, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, violinists Jack Liebeck and Anthony Marwood, cellists Torleif Thedeen, Trish Dean, Blair Harris and Patrick Murphy, tenor Andrew Goodwin, pianists Daniel De Borah, Alex Rainieri and the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, harpist Marshall McGuire, the Brodsky, Goldner and Flinders Quartets, Katie Noonan, the Melbourne Piano Trio, the Seraphim Trio, the Endeavour Trio, Australia Piano Quartet and the Australian Flute Festival. His opera “Dry River Run” commissioned by the Queensland Conservatorium Opera School, premiered in September, 2018 and in 2017 the Queensland Symphony premiered the Orchestral Fragments of the opera.
Hailed as a “born communicator” (The Australian), a “brilliant young musician” (Otago Times), and a “soloist of superb virtuosic skill and musicality” (Limelight), Alex Raineri (b. 1993) is active Internationally and throughout Australia as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, writer, producer and educator.
International performances include tours throughout America, Southeast Asia, United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany and Austria. Within Australia, Alex has appeared as a feature artist in many major festivals and venues. As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the Queensland, Tasmanian, Darwin and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, Ensemble Q, Southern Cross Soloists, Orchestra Victoria, Four Winds Festival Orchestra, Bangalow Festival Orchestra, Queensland Youth Symphony and the Queensland Pops Orchestra. He has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Radio NZ, California Capital Public Radio, ABC Classic FM and all of the Australian MBS Networks.
Alex is the Artistic Director of the annual Brisbane Music Festival. He is a passionate exponent and commissioner of contemporary music, having given 109 World Premieres + 147 Australian Premieres to date.
Major awards include the Kerikeri International Piano Competition and Australian National Piano Award. He was the recipient of the Queensland Luminary Award in the 2021 APRA/AMCOS Art Music Awards and received a Kranichsteiner Musikpries at the International Summer Courses for New Music (Darmstadt, Germany).
Notable collaborations include Andreas Ottensamer, TwoSet Violin, eighth blackbird, ELISION, Sara Macliver, Natalie Clein, Natsuko Yoshimoto, Karin Schaupp, Greta Bradman, Li Wei Qin, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Jack Liebeck, Kathryn Stott, Slava Grigoryan, Brett Dean, William Barton, Ensemble Offspring, Orava Quartet, and many others.
Additionally to a full-time performative profile, Alex is a radio-presenter on 4MBS Classic FM, a reviewer for The Music Trust’s ‘Loudmouth’, and holds associate artist positions at both the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University + University of Queensland.
VENUE – SALVATION ARMY BRISBANE CITY TEMPLE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SUPPORT
Alex Raineri’s appearance in the 2022 festival is generously supported by Loris Orthwein.
The Brisbane Music Festival is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
With gratitude to the following partner organisations and funding bodies for their support.
With thanks also to Gretel Farm, Simply Classical, The Brunswick Green and the countless individuals who have privately supported the 2022 BMF.
