Following last season’s “Forgotten Octet” project, critically acclaimed by The New York Times and The Washington Post, clarinetist, curator and “musical detective” (New York Classical Review) Graeme Steele Johnson returns to spotlight his instrument’s history in the hands of master composers and performers—from Mozart to the “King of Swing” to the present day. With music written for Benny Goodman, a new work by American composer Marc Mellits, and the seldom-heard original version of Mozart’s beloved Clarinet Quintet—played on a rare, elongated clarinet built for Johnson—the program traces fortuitous relationships between composers and clarinetists throughout history and the very special music that emerged. In a special treat, Stissing Center’s Director of Chamber Music Sophia Zhou joins the quintet for Prokofiev’s rousing klezmer sextet for clarinet, strings and piano.

Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet

Kristin Lee & Rachell Ellen Wong, violins

Tanner Menees, viola

Jia Kim, cello

PROGRAM

Alan Shulman Rendezvous with Benny (1946)

[1915-2002]

Marc Mellits Discrete Structures for Clarinet & String Quartet (2024)

[b. 1966]

Sergei Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano, Op. 38 (1919) [1891-1953]

–intermission–

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Quintet in A Major for Basset Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, K. 581 [1756-1791]