Lawrence McDonald Celebrates Beginnings and Endings in Concert Slated for Sunday, February 20, 4:30 P.M. in Kulas Recital Hall; McDonald to Retire in May Story by Claire Chase
			"He is a brilliant man who, better than any other clarinet teacher known to me, knows how to represent, clarify and bring to life the fundamentals of clarinet playing through the sole use of spoken language. He is a dear man to both my heart and to my musical education. Without his support and guidance, I would not be where I am today." - Kenneth Robertson (OC '98) principal clarinet of the New World Symphony, the prestigious orchestral training ensemble in Miami, FL. Lawrence McDonald, professor of clarinet, will perform his "swan song" recital with James Howsmon, professor of accompanying, on Sunday, February 20, at 4:30 p.m. in Kulas Recital Hall. McDonald's performance will be the clarinetist's final full-length recital before his retirement in May following more than 30 years of service to the Oberlin community. The concert will feature music for clarinet and piano by Scriabin, Brahms, Edward Miller, Elliot Carter, and Carlos Guastavino. It is free and open to the public. "There is a theme to this concert, not immediately apparent, perhaps," remarks McDonald. "It is about beginnings and endings. I have re-arranged the order (of the Scriabin Preludes) and have framed the collection by replaying the first prelude at the end. This is to suggest the connected-ness of beginnings and endings." Incidentally, the Brahms E-flat Sonata, Opus 120, No. 2, was the first piece McDonald played as a faculty member at Oberlin, in a concert introducing new faculty members. "This was Brahms' last sonata and nearly his last work. It was written for his good friend Richard Muhlfeld. I had the opportunity once to play on one of Muhlfeld's clarinets. It was a life-changing experience. "My friend and former faculty member Edward Miller wrote Going Home for me, in memory of one of his closest friends from his days before Oberlin. It was written on the occasion of the International Clarinet Association's national conference, which I hosted in Oberlin in 1985. This piece completes the first half of my program, as 1985 ended the first half of my stay at Oberlin. "The Elliot Carter Gra is a very youthful work, I must say in a sort of in-your-face, Til Eulenspiegal mode. The title is the Polish word for "play." Young and vital as it is, it was composed when Carter was well into his eighties, celebrating the birthday of his friend, the composer Withold Lutoslawski. Trickster is ageless, endlessly inventive. And a pain in the neck. Like beginnings and endings, they go together," McDonald muses. The Guastavino Sonata was composed in 1970, the same year McDonald was appointed to the faculty at Oberlin. "I had the opportunity to meet Guastavino on my first trip to Buenos Aires, where I went to perform and give master classes," McDonald reminisces. "He was 84 and very lean and handsome and lived in a small apartment with plain furniture he had built himself…Contrary to his surroundings, his music is lush and openly romantic, just straight from the heart. I think I've never met a person who loved music more. "Guastavino's Tonada y Cueca are dance forms; he wrote them for Luis Rossi [the virtuoso Argentine clarinetist and long-time friend of McDonald's] when Rossi was a student at the conservatory in Buenos Aires, and Guastavino was a professor. Tonada y Cueca are arrangements that the composer made, for clarinet and piano, of art songs which he had fashioned from Argentine folksongs. Beginnings and endings." The idea of "beginnings and endings" is applicable not only to McDonald's unusual recital program, but also to his plans for post-retirement. Although May marks the end of his position as professor of clarinet at Oberlin, his career as a performer and a master teacher is far from over. "I have no plans of disengaging in any way from teaching and/or performing," says McDonald. "I have opened a private studio in New York, and have begun teaching there. I will be associated on an ad hoc basis with several institutions, and I expect to give more master classes, which have occupied more of my time in recent years." McDonald, who holds a master's degree in music history and a doctorate in musicology, will also begin work on his thesis for a second master's degree in English from the Creative Writing Program at Cleveland State University. 30 Years of Teaching "One cannot help but be affected by Mr. McDonald's passionately intellectual path to performing music. I was always refreshed by his startlingly direct diagnosis of any musical quandary. His musical path embodies a demand for musical clarity, a desire to avoid musical cliches at all costs, and a unique respect for quality of sound. His teaching provided me not only solutions for the task at hand, but also for the obstacles that I encounter in every musical situation I will ever be in." - Campbell MacDonald (OC '99), co-principal clarinet of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria in Mexico City. McDonald has had a rich and varied career. He has appeared throughout the United States as a soloist and chamber musician, in concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center. Internationally, he has carried out research throughout Europe in the area of historical performance on antique instruments, and has performed and recorded widely on period instruments from his own extensive collection. In Oberlin, McDonald has been active as a performer, chamber musician, and has served as director of the New Directions series. Throughout his three-decade tenure as professor of clarinet, he has mentored hundreds of young clarinetists on the path to professional success. Lawrence McDonald Scholarship - Beginnings and Endings As a tribute to McDonald and a gift to future clarinet students at Oberlin, a scholarship was recently established with leadership gifts of $5,000 by two of McDonald's former students, Bela Schwartz (OC '79) and David Ballon (OC '79). Marci Alegant, assistant director of major gifts, elaborates, "When the scholarship reaches $25,000, it will be considered endowed, and the earnings can then be awarded in the form of scholarship money. In the next couple of weeks, letters will go out to most of Larry's former students, inviting them to contribute. "Endowing a scholarship is a meaningful tribute. When the person being honored is a professor, it is particularly significant, and allows that professor to continue to make a difference in the lives of students, long after the teacher retires, by providing future students the opportunity to study at Oberlin. "One of Oberlin's greatest strengths is the level of demonstrated commitment by its alumni, whether in the form of money, expertise, time or mentoring. As clichéd as it might sound, the relationship between Oberlin and its constituents is the foundation upon which Oberlin may insure its future, while still illuminating its past."
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