August 17, 2019 - Kevork Andonian (Composer)/Jonathan Sacdalan (Clarinet)
I met a lot of brilliant musicians at the Dream Concert in 2013.
Jonathan Sacdalan is one of the most incredible clarinetists I have ever met. He has a rich tone and navigates all the registers of the instrument with aplomb. He would also play the opening of "Rhapsody in Blue" when I performed it with the Southeast Symphony in 2015.
Kevork Andonian is the Composer-in-Residence of the Dream Orchestra. We played his arrangement of "Libertango" as an encore at the Dream concert with a lot of piano improv sprinkled on top.
(Side note: I was so busy prepping the rest of the concert, that I did not rehearse this and mainly ended up doubling the melody throughout. Also, I was playing off the score, and didn't tape my score together, so the video is largely me turning pages.)
I did Kevork's amazing arrangement such little justice, that I am not going to post a link to this. If you really want to see it, it's findable on YouTube.
You should really watch the video below instead. Kevork was a part of our 2020 Virtual Conference and shared one of most haunting, beautiful, moving pieces I have ever heard in my life. I challenge you not to get emotional.
CLICK ON video below.
And to get an understanding of Jonathan's clarinet mastery, check out the video on the Inception Private mentoring page. It traces Bradley Carpiuc's lesson journey closing with his piece, "Awaken". Jonathan features on the clarinet and bass clarinet.
The pairing of Jonathan and Kevork was really interesting. We had two top flight mentors who are extremely professional, but how would their session be together?
At the time it was really evident to Claire and me that perhaps there would have been no chemistry between them. But when we hit the end of the lesson, they had both done such a deep dive with the composers' pieces, you really only could say wow.
The next night was the Hollywood Bowl concert with June, so a really full Inception weekend.
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