After my research stay in Basel, I was finally able to attend a conference in a physical location again (and not just online): the XVII International Congress of the German Musicological Society (GfM), from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1, in Bonn, Germany.
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Interview with Composer Allen Shawn | by E. Reisinger

Recently, I had the great pleasure of talking to Allen Shawn. I had reached out to him in the context of my research on Benny Goodman, as he had received a composition commission from Goodman in 1983, resulting in a double concerto for clarinet, cello, and orchestra. Apart from that, Shawn has been working with numerous other performers throughout his career and his work is strongly influenced by such collaborations.
Continue reading86th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society | by E. Reisinger
Watch my video presentation: “Intermediary Between Two Worlds: The Role of Eric Simon in Benny Goodman’s Commissioning of Classical Music”
Tracking Sources Along the US East Coast | by E. Reisinger
Featured image: Charles River, Cambridge/MA © private photo, E. Reisinger, 2019
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How the “King of Swing” Became my Pilot Study for Commissioning Classical Music | by E. Reisinger
Some years ago, when I more often played the clarinet myself, I put Aaron Copland’s clarinet concerto on my music stand. “For Benny Goodman,” it read on the top of the first page. What hasn’t really attracted my attention before, now distracted me from practicing the challenging cadenza: When, how, why was this piece created? I started reading and researching, and soon learned that Goodman commissioned Copland to write a concerto for him in 1947/48 for 2,000 US dollars.
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