Musicians Resource News: HOT!

In the July/August 2000 issue of Fanfare, clarinetist Andrew Simon’s new recital disc with pianist Jon Klibonoff, Hot, drew from my fellow reviewer John Story enthusiastic plaudits – “a delight of music familiar and new… This is a fine recital.” Hot is one of the first releases on Gregory K. Squire’s new independent label, Musician’s Showcase, and regular readers of these pages may also have noted Raymond Tuttle’s comments on this impressive disc in 23:1: “Hot bodes well for the label’s future. Much attention has been paid to all aspects of the product, from its professional appearance to the music contained therein.”
It was therefore with much pleasure and interest that I readily agreed to track down Andy Simon to discuss his work, his recordings, his ideas, and his ambitions, and our resulting telephone conversation – one of the most stimulating, invigorating, and wide-ranging I’ve had with any recording artist – is recounted here.
Praised by Michael Tilson Thomas for his “formidable technique, flair, and musicianship,” Andrew Simon is a graduate of the Juilliard School, and currently holds the first-chair clarinet position with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also held guest principal clarinet positions with the New Zealand Symphony, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Mainly Mozart Orchestra, and has been the recipient of a number of major awards. After he won the Artists International Young Musicians Auditions Clarinet Award in 1988, Andrew Simon’s triumphant Carnegie Recital Hall debut drew from the New York Times critic (who praised his “brilliant playing, fleetness, and ear for coloristic detail”) comparisons with Benny Goodman.
From his base in Hong Kong, Simon pursues a hectic international career, having appeared as soloist in China, Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand. With over 40 concerto appearances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic alone to his credit, he has also recorded the Wagner/Baermann Adagio with the orchestra under its outgoing music director, David Atherton, and, during the 1998-99 season, performed John Corigliano’s clarinet concerto (a work with a reputation for being virtually unplayable!), which he has studied with the composer.
I began by asking Andy Simon about Hot, and wondered how he approached the task of selecting repertoire in the first instance. “Basically, I like to think that, with all the music, I have a legitimate point of view to offer, and interpretation that’s worth documenting,” he explains. “I have always been interested to keep an eye out for material that’s rarely recorded, but much of this has been totally recorded, as you know! So what you have here is a program that explores as many of the expressive qualities of the clarinet as possible. I guess I’ll know we’ve done it right when people say, having heard the record, ‘Oh! – I never new the clarinet could actually do that!’ The other important thing was that Musician’s Showcase gave me full artistic license, so I could record whatever I chose. Problem is that it’s a record-store nightmare! I mean, where are you going to put a CD like this? But, like I said, my aim was to document my strengths by offering a little of everything, and so far it’s proved to be a marketable choice; sales are going fine!”
Musician’s Showcase Records is the brainchild of producer Gregory K. Squires. I wondered whether Andy Simon could fill in the background to his own involvement, and describe something of the origins of the label. “Many years ago Greg Squires had his own recording company, with a very high reputation for excellence,” he continues. “Greg won several Grammy’s and recorded some very great artist’s including Goodman. Then, about ten years ago, a colleague called him one day, during the summer vacation, and asked him to visit to discuss some ideas he’d had for a new label, but nothing happened. So, after another ten years, Greg called him again, and the rest is history, it’s as simple as that!”
The Musician’s Showcase philosophy is fairly specialized, and probably unique in that it is run by musicians, for musicians. Andy Simon describes it as “one-stop shopping – you just deal with a single organization which provides a first-class producer, a first-class hall, does all its own artwork, and everything else in house. But I have total control over what goes on the record, right down to the cover photos, the notes, everything! It’s been great, too, from a business point of view. You know the best way to sell your records is at your own concerts. For example, I played a Memorial Day picnic concert with the West Point Band, and sold 10,000 CDs on the day! You can’t do that in a record store, and, again, it’s another example of the very enlightened approach taken by this label, which, as I said, really is run for musicians at every different level. I can’t say enough in praise of Musicians Showcase. I’ve had the chance to deal with reputable people all down the line, and I’ve got all the benefits.

“To show you what I mean, that HOT really is my baby, just take a look at the front cover of the booklet: I’ve got that image of the clarinet in flames, and then all around, different translations of the word Hot. Do you know what the word ‘TUJ’ is? It’s Klingon for “hot.” OK, it’s a bit of a joke really, I know, but at the same time, the important point to stress is that the label really does give the artist absolute control, and that’s very rare these days. This CD is really me. It’s a clarinetist’s dream!”

The recording repertoire is a wonderfully catholic mix of the familiar and the novel, and I asked Andy to describe the background of Romanian composer and musicologist Serban Nichifor’s extraordinary virtuoso work CARYNX, for solo clarinet. “I came across the piece in 1988, at the International Clarinet Convention in Hong Kong. I had a million and one new pieces to go through but I fell in love with CARYNX instantly, and when I later included it in my Carnegie Hall debut recital, it seemed a good choice as it was a US premiere. The New York Times critic loved it, and I sent a copy of the review with a tape to the composer, and a Bucharest paper ran a feature in French! I’d been in touch with Serban, but just at this point the revolution started, and I didn’t hear anything more. Naturally I was worried, and, after one concert performance, a patron in the audience helped by hiring private investigators to try to track down Nichifor, which they did, and we managed to communicate again.”

CARYNX evokes the sound of an ancient Romanian instrument, but employs the entire panoply of modern technical devices in clarinet playing, such as multiphonics, and “bent” notes to produce an incredible timbral range. “The piece always gets a terrific audience response,” says Simon. “I felt I had to record this work, as it’s very much a fundamental aim of mine to legitimize the clarinet as a versatile solo instrument. As I said earlier, it’s great listeners express their astonishment at what they hear, and this piece is a tremendous virtuoso vehicle. But then there are other points in the literature that I still get excited about, even thought they are hardly new. The transcription of the Rachmaninoff Adagio (from Symphony No. 2) is my own, and it’s one of the great orchestral solos in the literature. But for the recording we just tried to make it sound more personal, more intimate.”

Andrew Simon is also strongly committed to new music for his instrument, and has enjoyed particular success in the Corigliano concerto written for Stanley Drucker, who gave the first performance with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. “It is a work I’d wanted to perform for some time. I know it has a reputation for being incredibly difficult to play, but its coming into its own now, and that’s a testimony to its stature as one of the most defining of contemporary clarinet concertos. Again, for me, its all part of this process of campaigning on behalf of the instrument, and showing people what it can really do. I finally got to play it last year in Hong Kong, and I sent a tape to Corigliano, who was kind enough to write back, and now other orchestras are engaging me to do the piece.”

But what are the pitfalls in attempting to build a solo career while holding down a major orchestra post at the same time? “I’ve had tremendous good luck,” says Andrew Simon. “I’ve been able to play more than 40 solos with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. That’s more than anyone else in the orchestra’s history. And that’s not always been cheap for them! We needed 90 players for the Corigliano Concerto, and so it was a gesture of confidence from them in me, which I certainly value highly. Recently, with David Atherton conducting, we also made the world’s first clarinet recording for the Internet of the Wagner/Baremann Adagio. It went out on the GMN Web site, and it was also GMN who put out my first CD. I’ve also played Copland in Brisbane and Perth, after someone recommended me to the A[ustralian} BC Network, and I’ve had a lot of good fortune, so much, in fact, that I’ve been able to make history three times! Firstly, with our Internet recording. Then I became the first American to play before seven despots in North Korea for Kim Il Sung's birthday party in 1992. Then, six weeks later, South Korea asked me to give a recital there also! And, lastly, I had a chance to play in our orchestra for the hand-back of Hong Kong to China.

“I came to Hong Kong for one year,” he says, “and I’ve stayed for 12!” Simon’s first experience of the Orient was on a Juilliard Orchestra tour of China while he was still a student. “I was very, very impressed with Hong Kong. It’s a good life here. This job was something I couldn’t resist. When I was 25, and just about to get married, he remembers, “I’d joined the New World Symphony in Florida under Michael Tilson Thomas, and I was set to move down there from New York. I can remember saying back home, “I’ve got good news: we’re not moving to Florida—actually, it’s Hong Kong!” Although the location is different, and the culture too, everyday life for me as a musician really isn’t so different.”

Today, Simon manages to pursue a varied and often frenetic career from his home base in Hong Kong, and, he says, it’s a life that suits him well. “Sometimes things get a little crazy, but that’s the same anywhere. But what I enjoy most of all is the variety, playing in the HK Philharmonic, teaching in three different universities here, and just moving all over the place all the time—right now, it’s the only life I can imagine! You know what I mean: One day you can be playing a concert here, and the next you’re bungy-jumping in New Zealand.” He pauses momentarily and then jokes, “Perhaps I’ll call my next CD Taking Chances….just that variety and diversity—it’s definitely where life’s at!”

And what of the next disc? Understandably, Andy Simon isn’t giving much away, but, he says, "I’ve got a number of things going right now, including some Stravinsky for GMN, and then we’re also doing some MP3 tracks from HOT. All I can say is that we’ve got the funding secured for another recording project, and, now that I have his blessing, I’d love to record John Corigliano’s Clarinet Concerto, but that’s definitely something for the future. And right now, I’m happy that the things I felt I had top record are on Hot.”

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