Chris Dorner (Winner of 2021 Call for Scores)
Chris Dorner (b. 2004) is currently a senior at Bentonville High School in Bentonville, Arkansas. Chris is both a representative of Panamanian-Americans as well as the LGBTQ community. Chris is a member of his school's marching band, jazz orchestra, concert band program as well as the choral program. Along with being the Vice-President of the school’s Tri-M (Modern Music Masters) Music Honors Society chapter.
Around the age of 12, Chris explored composition by initially transcribing his favorite metal songs. Eventually, he began writing his own pieces from solo instruments to small chamber ensembles, further developing to writing for large-scale ensembles such as wind band and symphonic orchestra. Within six years, Chris has self-published 19 pieces in various styles of music from classical, jazz, world music, to contemporary classical.
Klezmer Dance, for clarinet and piano - $20
“Klezmer Dance is the first movement of another piece (Klezmer Quartet No. 1) written for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano - designed to imitate the Jewish musical style known as Klezmer. This arrangement has been reduced for clarinet and piano, with the clarinet still remaining the main feature to truly make the piece Klezmer. Klezmer Dance opens with a waltz, introducing various motifs in the clarinet until it is suddenly interrupted with a piano cadenza (or silence) and transitions to a Mazurka-style dance.
The main theme of the dance is introduced with the clarinet, and repeated in different textural combinations in the piano and clarinet all while a ¾ against 4/4 polymeter groove develops in the piano, creating an uneven dance feel - a waltz pattern fighting against a cut-time pattern. Then the clarinet takes the focus and flaunts the typical characteristics of klezmer. Wailing in its upper register with extreme vibrato until it returns to the main dance theme, repeating in different textures and harmonies until the dance collapses bringing an end to the piece.”
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