The Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, Oregon launches this week with “Clarinet Critical Mass,” multiple concerts focusing on the clarinet, in tribute to clarinetist David Shifrin, the festival’s longtime artistic director, who will step down in 2020. Thirty-one clarinetists will participate in the first week of the festival from June 24 to 30, including Corrado Giuffredi, Ken Peplowski, Jose Franch-Ballester, Romie de Guise-Langloise, Mark Dover, and more. Repertoire will span from Mozart to new works for clarinet by Yuan-Chen Li, Libby Larsen, and Michele Mangani. A “Clarinet Critical Mass” event on June 29 will feature 29 clarinetists; on June 30 and July 1, concerts will feature Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Gran Partita featuring the winner of the Clarinet Celebration’s Young Artists Competition. The festival continues through July 28 with world premieres by composers including Daniel Temkin, Caroline Shaw, and David Schiff. The festival’s 2019-20 artists in residence are bassist Edgar Meyer and the Miró Quartet. As previously announced, Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim will succeed Shifrin as co-artistic directors at the end of the 2020 festival.
Posted June 25, 2019
