DESCRIPTION:
A little ditty for clarinet and piano that I created for the occasion of my composing teacher Ned Rorem's 90th birthday concert. Clarinetist Thomas Piercy put together some concerts in New York City to help celebrate Ned Rorem's 90th birthday and he asked several of Ned's former pupils to create a 90-note tune, a note for every year of Ned's life. Since I remember Ned talking during my lessons about his friendship with the great movie star Marlene Dietrich, I thought it would be fun to preface my 90-note tune with an ode to one of Dietrich's most famous songs, Lili Marlene. I also remembered Ned giving me a wonderul piano lesson on Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie, hence the opening chords.......Thomas sent me his live recording from NYCand so I added some strings to his recording....
So this piece of music is a memory of my musical moments with Ned Rorem, as well as a 90-note "Nelody".