Clarinetist Moran Katz to perform with Lyrica Chamber Music

The clarinet in all its varied guises will be on display when Lyrica Chamber Music welcomes Moran Katz for a program that extends from Brahms to Broadway to jazz, and shines a spotlight on an unfamiliar composer who spanned the 19th and 20th centuries.

This colorful concert, which features as its centerpiece Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata in E flat, launches at 3 p.m., Sunday, April 26, at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, 240 Southern Blvd.

Lyrica concerts are presented with the support of Morris Arts which seeks to build community through the arts.

Katz, who performed with Lyrica at Greenwood Gardens in 2018, will be joined by co-artistic directors, pianist David Kaplan and cellist Ani Kalayjian.

“I have performed with Ani and I've performed with David but this is going to be our first time performing all together as a trio,” Katz says. “I have always enjoyed them both as musicians and as people. Lots of laughs and silliness fill our interactions.”

Although Brahms was near the end of his composing career, his Clarinet Sonata in E flat reveals an ongoing zest for life.

“The Brahms clarinet sonata we'll be performing, while being one his very final works, is actually quite romantic and passionate,” Katz says.

Sunday’s varied program includes Kaplan playing Aaron Copland’s “Midday Thoughts,” Katz taking on George Gershwin’s Three Preludes in an arrangement for clarinet and piano, a Broadway medley, and the last two movements of Carl Frühling’s Clarinet Trio.

If the name Carl Frühling doesn’t immediately ring a bell, it’s not surprising.He lived from 1868 to 1937, and was acquainted with Brahms.But he had little success in his life, and much of his music has been lost.

But what has survived reveals a composer of considerable inspiration.

“The Frühling trio is rich in sound and harmonies,” Katz says. “It follows the Brahmsian style.”

If Brahms and Frühling take us into the classical world of 19th-century Vienna, Gershwin transports us into the roaring 20s and beyond with music that impacted popular and classical composers.

“The clarinet is a part of the jazz world just as much as it is classical,” Katz says. “I'm guessing that for a first-time listener, it would seem as if Gershwin originally wrote the Preludes for the clarinet.”

Like many musicians who have performed at Lyrica concerts, Katz is a part of Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s Affiliate Ensemble.

“Decoda is a group of musicians I have been lucky to grow together with,” Kats says.“Our common training as fellows of Ensemble Connect (a program of Carnegie Hall and Juilliard) shaped us all as ambassadors for our art. I have learned to listen and trust more than ever before.”

First Prize winner of the 2013 Ima Hogg Competition, Katz also received the Audience Choice Prize as well as the Artistic Encouragement Prize voted on by the Houston Symphony musicians. Katz has also won the First Prize at the Freiburg International Clarinet Competition in Germany, the Second Prize at the Beijing International Music Competition for Clarinet in China, and the First Prize and Overall Prize at the Midland/Odessa "National Young Artist Competition" in Texas.

Her performance credits include recitals for the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society and the Fine Arts Recital Series in Sarasota, Fla., a New York debut recital at Merkin Concert Hall as part of the Tuesday Matinee Recital Series, and a debut at the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard.As orchestra soloist, he has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia at London’s Barbican and Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin at the Philharmonie, as well the Symphony Orchestras of Hawaii and San Antonio.As recitalist, he has performed at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, Music on Main in Vancouver, Strathmore, Washington’s National Gallery, and New York’s Carnegie and Merkin Halls.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “representing the young, up-and-coming generation,” and a “superb cellist with a large, expressive, singing tone, passionate musicianship, and magnificent playing” by the Journal Tribune, Armenian-American cellist Ani Kalayjian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and educator that has taken her to Japan, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, and throughout Europe and the United States.

Tickets for Lyrica concerts are $35 ($30 for seniors),and students and children are admitted free.For more information about Lyrica Chamber Music, visit www.lyricachambermusic.com or call 973-309-1668.