Rey Abolofia: The Jewish Clarinet

Rey Abolofia: The Jewish Clarinet

An hour of clarinet music by Verdi, Simeon Bellison, Gershwin, Milhaud, and Steve Reich, who turns ninety this month. Five pieces, five worlds — opera, klezmer, the American songbook, French modernism, and minimalism.

All ages. Suggested $18. Children 12 and under free.

At the center is Reich's New York Counterpoint, a cornerstone of the modern clarinet repertoire that is almost never heard the way it was built to be heard. Rey plays the live part against ten clarinet parts he recorded himself, played back through speakers set around the room rather than aimed at the audience from a stage. The sound arrives from every direction at once. You don't so much listen to this music as sit inside it.

Rey introduces each piece from the stage: who wrote it, when, why it belongs on a program called The Jewish Clarinet, and how being Jewish shaped the music.

Program

- Verdi, La forza del destino, arranged for clarinet and piano

- Bellison, Four Hebraic Pictures

- Gershwin, three pieces, arranged for clarinet and piano

- Milhaud, Duo concertant

- Reich, New York Counterpoint

Rey Abolofia, clarinet

Lee Melaugh, piano

Cory Johannsen and Yoni Schultz, sound design.

About Rey Abolofia

Rey Abolofia is Principal Clarinet of the Salem Philharmonia Orchestra and bass clarinetist with the Sunnyside Symphony Orchestra. He has performed in recitals across the United States, Europe, and Africa. He studied clarinet at the Eastman School of Music and holds a Master's degree in Music from Portland State University, magna cum laude.

He is also a historian of the music he plays. His graduate and doctoral work centered on musicology — early music, particularly the vocal repertoire of the fifteenth century, and the intersection of music theory and mathematics — and he teaches music history on the faculty of Music Camps at Wallowa Lake. Rey has taught clarinet privately in Portland for twenty-five years. In 2008 he received the Portland State University President's Award for Outstanding Community Engagement, the highest honor conferred by the University President, for his work in public schools, recitals in local nursing homes, and dedication to his students.