SKU: SU.21000213

UPC: 820821003284.

Jazz Sonorities (2002) was composed for Esther Lamneck at her request and premiered by her and Barbara Allen on drums at the Loewe Theater of New York University on May 30, 2002. Ms. Lamneck asked me to compose a piece for either solo clarinet or clarinet and piano. I decided on the former to continue my Sonorities series of works for solo instruments which eventually resulted in Sonorities VII for solo b-flat clarinet (2003-04). However, shortly after getting started with my Sonorities VII I kept hearing the swinging sounds of a jazz clarinet backed up by a jazz drum set. Part of the reason I kept hearing these sounds is that I grew up listening to the big swing bands of such clarinet leaders as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, and Jimmy Dorsey. These musicians were my first exposure to the clarinet. So I decided to first compose a piece for clarinet with a jazz quality and a swinging partly ad lib part for the drums and to put my solo clarinet piece for Esther on hold for a year. There was also a personal reason to use the drums in the piece. My first ambition in music was to be a jazz drummer and indeed I studied drums with a jazz drummer and played drums professionally in dance bands for several years. Ms. Lamneck's part in this piece is almost entiirely written out except for a few measures of improvisation around the middle of the piece. The jazz quality of her part comes mostly in the prasing and using bluesy like pitch bends, slides, and microtones. The jazz quality of the drum set part is in the swinging beat that is used throughout most of the piece. The influence of the famous recording of Sing Sing Sing, with a swing by Benny Goodman & his orchestra in 1937 featuring Gene Krupa on drums is heard in the middle section when the drummer switches to a beat on the floor tom and high tom for several measures. Also, the Afro Cuban section toward the end of the piece was influenced by the many recordings of Stan Kenton & his orchestra particularly the 1950 Pete Rugolo arrangement of Cole Porter's Love for Sale. In the drum solo of the Afro Cuban section which is near the end can use optional claves and/or maracas (1-2 additional players). At the premiere the composer joined in this section on maracas. The drum set calls for a bass drum, floor tom, snare drum, high tom, ride cymbal, sizzle cymbal, and hi-hat. --Patrick Hardish.

SKU: JK.00012

Alma 37:2-3.

Vocal solo for medium voice with piano accompaniment on the theme of journals and histories, with the subtitle My Golden Plates Are Paper. Highest note: D.
Composer: Richard Rich
Lyricist: Barbara Tanner
Difficulty: Medium / difficult acc.
Reference: Alma 37:2-3.

SKU: CA.1901200

ISBN 9790007163969.

SKU: HL.49018031

SKU: PR.114418250

UPC: 680160640959. 9 x 12 inches.

In 2011, Barbara Garrop, my mother, commissioned me to write a piano trio in memory of Norman Garrop, my father, who passed away about thirty years ago. When I started brainstorming about topics for the piece, I found it difficult to recall many moments of my early life involving my father. Too many years had passed, and the memories that I could summon were of achild looking up to her father, not an adult relating to an equal. However, while collecting stories of my father from various family members, along with discovering a number of objects that had once belonged to him and that I had stored away in boxes decades ago, I began to realize that this piece wasn't so much about my father as it was about my re-discovering the man that he was: a loving husband and dad who cared deeply about his family and his passions (which included bike riding, collecting coins, strumming our guitar, playing baseball, watching football games, entertaining people, helping to run local theater and puppet productions, and carving objects out of wook); an accountant who dreamed of a better future: a treasurer of our local synagogue; an early advocate for computers (we owned an Apple II+); and a pranster with a great sense of humor. Ultimately, I decided to musically tell the story of my search for these memories. In the first movement (Without), a child calls out in a sing-song voice, searching for her lost parent. This search intesifies over the course of the movement through a series of themes, including a stepping motif in which a two-note progression steadily climbs higher, a pseudo-jewish folksong, and a passionate longing theme. The child's search becomes increasingly intense throughout the movement, calling out fervently and repeatedly to the parent; the movement ends in a moment of great tnesion and uncertainty. The second movment (Within) quietly opens with the lost parent finally answering, represented by a solo cello; the child (now personified by the violin) has found the parent within the sanctuary of her own heart. This movement highlights the joy and solemnity of this beautiful discovery. -S.G.