The end of 2018 proved to be a busy one for Classical Guitarist/Composer/Educator, Dr. Alan Goldspiel. Filled with performances, World Premiers, and Klezmer music, the last four months of the year found Goldspiel’s music being performed from Alabama to Vancouver, Canada and everywhere in between.
On September 23rd, Goldspiel headed the Magic Shtetl Klezmer Band (Robert Janssen – clarinet, Alan Goldspiel – guitar, Ron Alexander – Bass) for a private event at the Be One Today Ministries in Birmingham, Alabama.
Later that month, on September 30th, Goldspiel traveled to the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi for a 2:30 p.m. performance at the Mid-South Chapter of the National Association of Composers USA recital of new music.
Accompanied by Dr. Lori Ardovino, he performed his new piece Duck, Duck Soup for guitar and bass clarinet. Duck, Duck Soup is comprised of four sections – Monkey Business, Night at the Opera, The Coconuts, and Animal Crackers and was inspired by the Marx Brothers movies.
Other performances included Lori Ardovino’s compositions From A Crack In The Wall and Eloquence IV for Solo Eb Clarinet as well as Ruston Romp and Oriental Dreams by Joe L. Alexander. The afternoon concert also contained performances of compositions by Biraj Adhikari, Richard Montalto, Ken Davies, Valentin M. Bogdan, David R. Peoples, and Olga Harris.
Immediately after his performance, Dr. Goldspiel set off back to Birmingham for a 5:40 p.m. Simchat Torah Service performance with his Magic Shtetl Klezmer Band at Temple Emanu-El. The band’s new arrangements of Hora Medleys were performed as congregants danced with the Torah.
The Magic Shtetl Klezmer Band started out the month of October with another Simchat Torah Service this time at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham on the 1st.
Eleven days later on October 12th, Goldspiel’s composition Sometimes Y had its World Premiere performance by the LeBaron Trio at the 2018 CMS/ATMI/NACWPI National Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The piece consists of six sections – [A, First of All; E, Silence is…; I, Am; and O, The Story of; U, The Ugly; and Sometimes Y]. Sometimes Y is a part of an ongoing collaboration between composer, Goldspiel, and poet Barry Marks.
The LeBaron Trio – Lori Ardovino (clarinet), Melanie Williams (voice), and Laurie Middaugh (piano) – like Goldspiel, are professors at the University of Montevallo. Ardovino also premiered her new composition, Nonsense Songs, at the conference.
November consisted of two NASM – National Association of Composers, USA – performances. On the 4th of November, the performers headed to the University of Montevallo’s LeBaron Recital Hall. There Goldspiel performed his composition Duck, Duck Soup with Lori Ardovino (bass clarinet).
Later in the program the LeBaron Trio performed the first four sections [A, First of All; E, Silence is…; I, Am; and O, The Story of] of Goldspiel’s Sometimes Y. Other composers represented in the program were Joe L. Alexander, David R. Peoples, Lori Ardovino, and Biraj Adhikari.
On November 14th, the LeBaron Trio performed Goldspiel’s piece Sometimes Y at the Promenade Concerts at AUM in Montgomery, Alabama.
November 17th to the 20th took Goldspiel to the National Association of Schools of Music conference in Washington, D.C. where he represented the University of Montevallo as a voting member of the organization.
On November 27, Goldspiel was the narrator for the Montevallo Choral Christmas concert at the American Village in Montevallo.
On December 2nd, Goldspiel traveled to the University of North Georgia to perform at the Ed Cabell Theater for the National Association of Composers USA, (NACUSA) Mid-South Chapter Composers Recital.
Goldspiel opened the recital with his four movement piece for guitar and tuba – Duck, Duck, Soup. He was joined by Joe L. Alexander on tuba. Later in the program, Goldspiel and Alexander returned to the stage to perform Alexander’s piece for guitar and tuba, Dialog #6 for Guitar and Tuba. Goldspiel then returned to the stage for a third time to close the program with one movement of his new solo guitar piece called In Dreams: Broken Bridge.
Other composers in the program were David R. Peoples and William Price.
And to finish out the year, on December 13th, the LeBaron Trio performed Goldspiel’s piece, Sometimes Y, at Auburn University’s A Little Lunch Music series in the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art in Montgomery, Alabama.
And now with 2019 upon us, it is shaping up to be another busy year of premieres and performances and we can’t wait to tell you about them all.