RVSO CD
"Best of the Best"
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Concert Series III
January 2010
Friday, January 28, SOU Recital Hall, Ashland, 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 29, Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, Medford, 7:30
pm
Sunday, January 30, GPHS Performing Arts Center, Grants Pass, 3 pm
Jon
Manasse, clarinet Grieg: Holberg Suite
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Jon Manasse, clarinet
Mozart: Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
All are invited to a pre-concert talk one hour before each performance. Free.
Jon Manasse, clarinet
Among the most distinguished classical artists of his generation, clarinetist Jon Manasse is internationally recognized for his inspiring artistry, uniquely glorious sound and charismatic performing style.
He is principal clarinetist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, all in New York City. As one of the nation's most highly sought-after wind players, he has also served as guest principal clarinetist of the New York Pops Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New Jersey, Saint Louis and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, under the batons of Gerard Schwarz, Zdenek Macal, Jerzy Semkow, Robert Craft and Hugh Wolff. For several seasons, he was also the principal clarinetist of the New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Manasse has been a guest clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic in concerts conducted by Valery Gergiev and André Previn, and, during the 2003-04 season, served as the principal clarinetist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performing under the batons of Artistic Director James Levine and, among others, Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski.
A graduate of The Juilliard School, he studied with David Weber. He was a top prize winner in the Thirty-Sixth International Competition for Clarinet in Munich and the youngest winner of the International Clarinet Society Competition. Currently, he is an official "Performing Artist" of both the Buffet Crampon Company and Vandoren, the Parisian firms that are the world's oldest and most distinguished clarinet maker and reed maker, respectively. Since 1995, he has been Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music. In 2007 he joined the faculty of his alma mater, The Juilliard School. In addition, he and his duo partner, the acclaimed pianist Jon Nakamatsu, serve as Artistic Directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival.
Jon Manasse's solo appearances include New York City performances at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Hunter College's Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse, Columbia University, Rockefeller University and The Town Hall, fourteen tours of Japan and Southeast Asia with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, debuts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Osaka and concerto performances with Gerard Schwarz and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, both at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and at the prestigious Tokyu Bunkamura Festival in Tokyo. With orchestra, he has been guest soloist with the Augsburg, Dayton, Evansville, Naples and National philharmonics, Canada’s Symphony Nova Scotia, the National Chamber Orchestra and the Alabama, Annapolis, Bozeman, Dubuque, Florida West Coast, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Jackson, Oakland East Bay, Pensacola, Princeton, Richmond, Seattle, Stamford and Wyoming symphonies, under the batons of Leslie B. Dunner, Peter Leonard, Eckart Preu, Matthew Savery, Alfred Savia and Lawrence Leighton Smith. Of special distinction was Mr. Manasse’s 2002 London debut in a Barbican Centre performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with Gerard Schwarz and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
Jon Manasse has six critically acclaimed CDS on the XLNT label: the complete
clarinet concerti of Weber, with Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra;
the complete works for clarinet and piano of Weber, with pianist Samuel Sanders;
recording premieres of 20th Century
clarinet works; "Clarinet Music from 3 Centuries," including Mozart's
Clarinet Quintet (with the Shanghai Quartet), as well as music by Spohr, Gershwin
and James Cohn; James Cohn’s Clarinet Concerto #2; and the concerti of Mozart,
Nielsen and Copland, with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Also available
are his recordings of Steven R. Gerber’s/ Clarinet Concerto with Vladimir Lande
and the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony on the Arabesque label and Lowell
Liebermann’s Quintet for Clarinet, Piano and String Trio on KOCH International.
His
debut CD with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, a harmonia mundi album of the Brahms Clarinet
Sonatas, was released to international rave reviews, early in 2008. 2010 saw
the release of concerti by Mozart and Spohr with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle
Symphony, also on the harmonia mundi label.