So yes I did just wake up at 6 and decide to write this post. And no I don’t normally do this. As my mom said over the weekend, you know Anthony you haven’t updated your blog in I don’t know how long. And well so much for that free will thing. Mama still knows best. So in honor of James Altucher, awesome blogger, I’m gonna try and go back to bed by doing a list.   TOP TEN THINGS I DID OVER THE LAST 6 MONTHS. In chronological order. 1. Played a concerto with my big brother with this former orchestra the San Diego Symphony. Danzi Duo Concerto. An awesome experience playing...

I woke up this morning wanting to play something about the events in Japan and the emotions surrounding this tragedy. I knew I couldn’t put it into words so I thought I would improvise something. This is my tribute to the country of Japan, my friends there, the families of friends here and there and everyone else affected by this terrible event. Please forgive the sound and my unfamiliarity with doing something like this as it was recorded in my living room on garageband. Click the player below to hear. Love to Japan.   Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required...

Here is the great piece WGN did surrounding my recent Chicago performances and events. Thank you Rick Strasser and Dean Richards at WGN! http://www.wgntv.com/videobeta/f585d4ba-ae46-4516-a486-8e09db702562/News/Chicago-clarinetist-sits-center-stage-alongside-world-renowned-musicians

Hanging out with Yo Yo and Manny Ax in the Windy City! click photo to enlarge This past weekend I had the honor to play the Brahms Clarinet Trio with Yo Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax at Symphony Center in Chicago. It was a wonderful experience. The concert was the pinnacle of a weekend celebrating the launch of the Yo Yo Ma/Chicago Symphony’s Citizen Musician Initiative. The concept is a wonderfully simple one to grasp and hopefully will begin a movement to spread the gift of music to the largest amount of people. We went around to different places in the city, played, talked and spread music and...

It has been months and months since I last wrote on this blog. Many notes have been played but none written in far too long. In fact it had been so long that I forgot my password for this site!!!  I want to jump back in by writing about a highlight of the fall season for me. The one that changed my life is the run of Pelleas with None other than Sir Simon Rattle. There are moments in one’s life where you can feel something changing within yourself. This was one of those moments. The rehearsal period was fairly extensive, about two weeks worth and there were only 5 performances. It’s...

The video is up and live! Enjoy! We appear a few minutes in on the clip. http://beta.wnyc.org/thegreenespace/events/2010/jun/24/caramoor-festival-sneak-peek/

The title refers to what Paquito D’Rivera yelled at the end of our performance last evening at WNYC’s The Greene Space. This was an awesome experience and I hope the first of many new opportunities that I will experience in this lifetime. I’m playing a concert at the Caramoor International Music Festival on July 8th and last night was a preview of the festival where I luckily and surprisingly was teamed up with Paquito D’Rivera! We played his Contradanza for two clarinets and piano and it was so much fun. At the soundcheck we ran through the piece a couple of times and then...

When you get the opportunity to play with one of the great teachers, players and musicians of all time when you are 18, it changes you. I became a “professional” when I went to Marlboro Music Festival for the first time  as an 18 year old student because I learned that the only thing that was important was that I played music and took it very seriously. My early exposure to the Beethoven String Quartets was with the Guarneri Quartet recordings. Stunning. That first summer  I got to play in a group with David Soyer and it was the Schubert Octet. The piece is like an hour long and it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAiPxgwesQc One of the gems of the music world, The New York String Orchestra Seminar is an awesome group of young musicians that come together once a year to be immersed in great music and instruction, culminating in concerts at Carnegie Hall. It was founded by Frank Salomon who created the seminar in 1969 for Alexander Schneider, one of the great musicians of our time. I participated in the program when I was in college and it changed my life. I go back whenever I can to coach and in this instance, conduct  a sectional. These kids are the best musicians in the...

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