West Virginia University Professor John Weigand will perform a clarinet recital at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 27 at the Creative Arts Center.
Weigand teaches applied clarinet and conducts the Chamber Winds Ensemble in the WVU School of Music. He will be joined for his recital by Marina Schmidt Lupinacci, piano; Mikylah Myers McTeer, violin; Lauretta Werner, violin; Andrea Houde, viola and Erin Ellis, cello. The recital will feature two works.
The first piece will be Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Opus 94 by Sergei Prokofiev. In 1943, during the Second World War, Sergey Prokofiev was in Perm to discuss staging his ballet Cinderella with the evacuated Kirov company. There he completed a Flute Sonata, Op 94. According to his biographer Israel Nestyev, its themes had been sketched before the war, inspired by the French flute player Georges Barrère. The Sonata became even more famous in a version for violin, transcribed at the suggestion and with the assistance of the Soviet violinist David Oistrakh. However it seems appropriate that the Sonata should now find new life in a transcription for another woodwind instrument, to which it seems particularly well suited.
Quintet in b minor for Clarinet and Strings, Opus 115 by Johannes Brahms will be the second piece in the program. There was a confluence of events that led to the composition of the Brahms Quintet. Brahms had a deep respect for and friendship with the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, having dedicated his sublime Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77, to Joachim in 1878. Brahms, Joachim and Hausmann shared significant history together, having collaborated in the premiere of Brahms' Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 102, in 1887, Brahms’ last composition for orchestra. Hausmann was also a longtime member of the famed Joachim String Quartet. It is also known that Brahms was familiar with the Mozart Quintet. So, perhaps his knowledge of Mozart’s Quintet and close musical relationships with Mühlfeld, Joachim and Hausmann, made it inevitable that he would compose a quintet for Mühlfeld and the Joachim String Quartet.
Weigand performed part time in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for twenty-five seasons, playing principal, second and Eb clarinet. He has also played in the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the West Virginia Symphony and the Wheeling Symphony. He is a member of the Laureate Quintet in residence at WVU, and has collaborated with colleague James Miltenberger, Emeritus Professor of Piano at WVU, to perform in recital throughout the Eastern United States.
Weigand is an expert in the design and alteration of clarinet mouthpieces and has done mouthpiece alteration for clarinetists in major U.S. symphony orchestras. He is nationally renowned for clarinet reed-making, and teaches this skill to his WVU clarinet students and professional colleagues. His company, Precision Reed Products, produces the world renowned Reedual, as well as other products for making single reeds. www.precisionreedproducts.com
Weigand holds degrees in music from The Florida State University, Northwestern University and The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and his principal teachers include Robert Marcellus, Fred Ormand, Lawrence McDonald, Keith Stein and Kent Krive.