Clarinetist, vocalist on way to Carnegie Hall

On Sunday Feb. 17, a local audience will have a chance to hear musicians who will perform next month at Carnegie Hall.

Dr. Michael Dean, an assistant professor of clarinet at Southeast, will give the recital along with Dr. Carol Ann Modesitt, an associate professor of voice at Southern Utah University, at 3 p.m. at Old St. Vincent's Church. They will be accompanied by pianist Dr. Barbara Riske of the Nevada Ballet Theatre and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

The performance is the third in a six-concert tour the three musicians have under taken. Other upcoming performances are at Rutgers University March 4 and at Westminster Conservatory at Princeton March 6. The concert at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall is March 9.

Dean and Modesitt, who formerly taught together at Southern Utah University, will perform together and separately. Dean will perform some unusual pieces, including "Half Moon at Checkerboard Mesa," composed by former rocker Phillip Bimstein.

In the 1980s, Bimstein had a rock band called Phil in the Blanks. He won a three-year residency at Zion National Park to write music about the Southwest.

"Half Moon at Checkerboard Mesa" originally was composed for oboe. Bimstein provided Dean with an orchestration for clarinet. His clarinet will be accompanied by a tape recording that includes sounds made by frogs in ponds, crickets and a coyote.

"It's clarinet meets frogs meets hip hop," Dean says. "It's pretty wild."

Dean calls the piece "alternative classical music. It's meant to be enjoyed right now."

The combination of clarinet and singer is not that unusual in classical music, Dean says. "It's more standard than you would think." A famous piece for clarinet and voice is Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock," also on the program.

"A lot of clarinetists really enjoy playing with a singer," Dean says. "It's a little something different."

They will premiere Jeffery Hoover new work "Soul and Fire." The work is a setting of four poems by the 12th century Persian poet and mystic Jaladdin Rumi.

Also on the program are more traditional works by Francis Poulenc, Claude Debussy and Gioachino Rossini.

Dean is the author of the 1997 book "Clarinet on Campus." Modesitt, a soprano, has sung leading roles at the New York City Opera, the Royal Opera (Covent Garden) and the French National Opera.

Riske performs with the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra and as guest pianist at the Vail International Dance Festival.