I am thrilled to be a part of the 45^th Parallel Universe as a guest of my long-time friend and musical colleague, James Shields. Ever since I’ve known James, he’s been the kind of guy that is always working on bringing musicians together. A community organizer of sorts. All of the clarinet players that you will hear tonight are people that I met by being a part of James’s orbit.

He approached me about this project at the beginning of the pandemic, with his trademark combination of bullish confidence and hilariously dry self-deprecation: “This probably won’t work, but I think we should just try it.” Knowing James, however, I knew it would work and I was game to try. I signed on, feeling inspired by the idea of making chamber music with clarinet players scattered across the country.

August 14 represents the grand debut of “Clarinet Calamity,” made up of Portland’s own James Shields, Steve Ahearn of the Dallas Symphony, Andrew Brown of the Rochester Philharmonic, Lou DeMartino of the Honolulu Symphony, and me, the freelancer of the bunch, based in Madison, Wisconsin. The rehearsals leading up to tonight’s concert have been both productive and comical. An interesting fact about the clarinet quintet is that it is not a commonplace ensemble in classical music. Few pieces (if any?) are actually written for this collection of licorice sticks. Fortunately for us, the universal shunning of this ensemble offers a huge amount of freedom in our repertoire choice, the idea being that, if nothing is written for us, then everything is fair game. Tonight you will hear a program representing the varied tastes of the performers, with music ranging from the 13th century to the early 2000s.

A note on the instruments you will see and hear tonight: besides the more familiar soprano clarinet, you may notice some more unusual clarinets in our midst, including the bass clarinet (the grandfather of our family) and the basset horn (the socially awkward cousin). It has been a unique pleasure to collaborate with such a talented group of musicians, all of whom do not shy away from playing all the necessary clarinets of the family.

We are delighted to come together in this unusual way, and we owe great thanks to tech expert Danny Rosenberg for coördinating this special live event.

Alicia Lee