Autorentext
Mike Curtis is a celebrated musician and composer. His lyrical performances on clarinet, saxophones, bassoon, oboe, and tarogato have enchanted audiences in North America and around the world. He has played in symphonies (Mexico City, Bay Area), operas (Portland, Phoenix) and for numerous sound and film productions. Mike Curtis began his klezmer career in 1982, succeeding the great Joel Rubin in the Hester Street Klezmer Band. Since then, his playing has taken him across Europe and Asia, including to the Krakow and Birobidjian Jewish Music Festivals. He has recorded with Oomph Intercontinental Klezmer (CD: Between Two Worlds), his own Mike Curtis Klezmer Quartet (CD: Street Song), and the Klezmonauts. His jazz experience includes five years as Director of Jazz Studies at Oregon State University and performances with Charlie Rouse and Anthony Braxton, among others.

Klappentext

Bulgarian Bat Bite was written in 2003 as a commission by the Quartetto Italiano di Clarinetti. It is an adaption and expansion of the composer's 1992 duet, Khyberian Catfit, which is included in his 10 Klezmer Duos, published by Advance Music of Germany. The Duo's name referred to the antics of the family cat, Khyber, without alluding to the Balkan influences upon the composers following a summer, 1992, klezmer tour to Eastern Europe. The name "Bulgarian Bat Bite" properly conveys the influence.
The transition to half-clarinets (mouthpiece inserted into the lower joint) in the middle section, discovered in the composer's lengthy exploration of free jazz, creates non-diatonic scales more associated with folk instruments and ecstatic dance.
Schwierigkeitsgrad: 4