Clarinet Quintets for Our Time David Shifrin, Dover String Quartet & Harlem String Quartet

• David Schiff (b. 1945): Ducal Suite (After Duke Ellington):
• 1 Ducal Suite (After Duke Ellington): I. Clarinet Lament 03:35
• 2 Ducal Suite (After Duke Ellington): II. Air-Conditioned Jungle 03:32
• 3 Ducal Suite (After Duke Ellington): III. Heaven 06:27
• 4 Ducal Suite (After Duke Ellington): IV. Kinda Dukish/Rockin' in Rhythm 05:04
• Chris Rogerson (b. 1988): Thirty Thousand Days:
• 5 Thirty Thousand Days: I. Quasi una danza 04:22
• 6 Thirty Thousand Days: II. Prestissimo, con sordino 04:32
• 7 Thirty Thousand Days: III. Quasi una ciaccona 08:40
• Valerie Coleman (b. 1970): Shotgun Houses:
• 8 Shotgun Houses: I. Shotgun Houses 05:34
• 9 Shotgun Houses: II. Grand Avenue 06:15
• 10 Shotgun Houses: III. Rome 1960 07:23
• Total Runtime 55:24

Info for Clarinet Quintets for Our Time

Master clarinetist David Shifrin partners with the Dover and Harlem String Quartets in an album that blazes with excitement. The three new quintets showcase the clarinets many moods and tones and explore the expressive capabilities of the string quartet as well. First on the album is Ducal Suite, featuring arrangements of compositions by Duke Ellington, one of the twentieth-centurys greatest and most influential composers. David Schiffs arrangements make the most of Shifrins virtuosity and deep feeling for this music. Chris Rogersons Thirty Thousand Days explores three stages of life, divided into increments of ten thousand days (approximately twenty-seven years). The music constantly changes and evolves throughout the three movements of the piece.Valerie Colemans Shotgun Houses is a tribute to Muhammed Ali. The first movement is a portrait of the West Louisville, Kentucky neighborhood where both she and Ali grew up. The middle movement is a love ballad, and the final movement depicts the boxing match in which Ali won an Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960.

David Shifrin, clarinet
Dover String Quartet
Harlem String Quartet

David Shifrin
One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award's inception in 1974, Mr. Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator.

Mr. Shifrin has appeared with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras and the Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit and Denver symphonies among many others in the US, and internationally with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In addition, he has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Shifrin has also received critical acclaim as a recitalist, appearing at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City as well as the the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. A sought after a chamber musician, he collaborates frequently with such distinguished ensembles and artists as the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Emerson String Quartets, Wynton Marsalis, and pianists Emanuel Ax and André Watts.

An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, David Shifrin served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He has toured extensively throughout the US with CMSLC and appeared in several national television broadcasts on Live From Lincoln Center. He has also been the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon since 1981.

David Shifrin joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music in 1987 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Yale and Yale's annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in September 2008. He has also served on the faculties of The Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Hawaii. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary professorship at China's Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Mr. Shifrin's recordings on Delos, DGG, Angel/EMI, Arabesque, BMG, SONY, and CRI have consistently garnered praise and awards. He has received three Grammy nominations - for a collaborative recording with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of the collected chamber music of Claude Debussy (Delos), the Copland Clarinet Concerto (Angel/EMI) and Ravel's Introduction and Allegro with Nancy Allen, Ransom Wilson, and the Tokyo String Quartet (Angel/EMI).

His recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performed in its original version on a specially built basset clarinet, was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review.

His latest recording, Shifrin Plays Schifrin (Aleph Records), is a collection of clarinet works by composer/conductor Lalo Schifrin. Both the recording of the Copland Clarinet Concerto and a 2008 recording of Leonard Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott have been released on iTunes via Angel/EMI and Deutsche Grammophon.

Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

In addition to the Avery Fisher Prize, David Shifrin is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Music Academy of the West. At the outset of his career, he won the top prize at both the Munich and the Geneva International Competitions. Mr. Shifrin resides in Connecticut with his wife and is the father of four children - Henry, Olivia, Sam and William.

Booklet for Clarinet Quintets for Our Time