This site is home to Alea Publishing & Recording, specializing in music for the bass clarinet.
We offer a growing catalog of creative, artistic transcriptions and new works for bass clarinet solo & ensemble.
About the Music
We thank the composer for sharing this program note about 7 Dances for Bob for B-flat clarinet and bass clarinet (2019):
Seven Dances for Bob was commissioned by Ian Mitchell, Director of Gemini for a piece in memory of Robert Coleridge, a highly regarded and versatile composer, organist, pianist, music colleague and friend of many musicians in contemporary music circles. He sadly died in 2019 aged only 63. Seven Dances for Bob was first performed at the Memorial Concert for Robert on September 19, 2019 at the Warehouse in London by Ian Mitchell and Catriona Scott.
I thought a set of dances would be very appropriate as Robert was musical director of the Laban Dance Centre in South East London for many years and had a wonderful sense of rhythm. These short dances are not actually based on traditional dances such as the waltz. They are varied in mood: the 1st dance is lugubrious, the 2nd fast and quirky, the 3rd pastoral and reflective, the 4th perky and humorous, the 5th jazzy (Robert was, amongst many other things, a great jazz enthusiast), the 6th a slow lament and the 7th is rhythmic and celebratory.
Duo Score: 15 pages. Extended-range instrument required for bass clarinet part.
PDF Edition
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About the Composer
Hugh Shrapnel was born in 1947 in Birmingham, England. He took up the oboe aged 13 and started composing at 16. He had private composition lessons with Elizabeth Lutyens, and studied composition with Norman Demuth and Cornelius Cardew at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Later on he gained a B.mus degree at Goldsmiths College London.
Hugh’s music has been widely performed in Britain as well as the US and Europe. In recent years Hugh has had many pieces performed by the London New Wind Music Festival and the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust. His 7 Dances for Bob for clarinet and bass clarinet have recently been performed by Ian Mitchell and Catriona Scott.
His music is characterised by its lyricism, sense of atmosphere and place, an element of humour, love of nature, use of unusual instrumental combinations and enthusiasm for experimentation. Musical influences are many and varied including English and American experimental music, Satie, Ives, Stravinsky, Scarlatti, Elizabethan music; also various kinds of jazz and popular music, Edwardian music-hall, folk music from around the world and the sound of bells.
Hugh has always been an enthusiastic and experienced pianist and was formerly an oboist as well as playing other less conventional instruments such as the toy piano and Irish tin whistle. Over the years he has composed for and performed in many new music ensembles including the Scratch Orchestra, Promenade Theatre Orchestra, the Shrapnel Wood and Metal Band and Vermilion. For many years Hugh taught music in inner city London Schools and ran evening classes in composition and song writing at London colleges.
Hugh is a member of the Performing Rights Society and the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
Kim Davenport
President
Duo Alea, the father-daughter duo of Michael and Kimberly Davenport, began performing music for bass clarinet and piano in 1996. As performers searching for new repertoire and teachers working with students eager to develop as performers, it quickly became clear that there was a need for more repertoire featuring the bass clarinet. Filling this need became the mission of Alea Publishing & Recording.
Since our first publication in 1997, the Alea catalog has now grown to include over 300 titles. We pride ourselves on the accuracy and quality of our sheet music, as well as our ability to ship directly to customers around the world.
We are proud of the diversity of our catalog in terms of the inclusion of works by composers and arrangers from around the world. We are interested in continuing to expand this diversity, representing musical ideas from around the world.
Following Michael's passing in 2019, Kim has taken over solo management of Alea Publishing. In 2020, Alea established the Dolphy Prize, an annual composition award for new works for bass clarinet by black composers.
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