Alex Sramek

Alex Sramek is a Los Angeles-based clarinetist, composer, and purveyor of shenanigans. MFA from CalArts in hand, this refugee from software engineering has recently made a playful nuisance of himself playing in a klezmer/rock band, guesting with a drone/doom tuba duo, leading improv sessions across Europe, teaching a room full of Clarinetfest attendees grotesque extended techniques, writing minimalist songs for obsessive-compulsive children, and thrilling unsuspecting guests with impromptu restroom concerts. More on his shenanigans can be found at mostlydifferent.com.

Concert Dates

  • June 9, 2013 - New York City, Jan Hus Church, New York City

15 one-minute selections for Alex Sramek

Concert program

  • Replication [CBCL]

    Michael Boyd

    Michael Boyd, currently Assistant Professor of Music at Chatham University, is a composer, scholar and experimental improviser. His music embraces experimental practices such as installation, multimedia and performance art. Boyd also serves as Wilkins Township Commissioner, and in 2012 was named Bike Pittsburgh’s Advocate of the Year.

    Replication [CBCL] is the first in a series of works that invite instrumental musicians to engage with their instrument's physical structure by creating a sculpture out of everyday, found objects that mimics its architecture. This process can be completed quickly in a formal setting or slowly as a performed installation.

  • On A Funky Clip

    Rodrigo Baggio

    Rodrigo Baggio has been performed in many cities around the world such as São Paulo, Brasilia and Tatuí (Brazil), Paris (France), Quebec (Canada), Bremen (Germany), London (England), New York and Vermont (USA). As a performer, he has played concerts in different countries of the globe.

    The piece is intended to be a homage to the musical video clip format, heavily popularized in the 1980s by artists from pop music influenced by traditional funk. Furthermore, it creates a parallel to the theme of the call - "Thinking inside the video clip".

  • Fit

    Joey Bourdeau

    Joey Bourdeau is a student at the University of South Florida where he studies both composition and music education. Apart from composition, he performs with both the USF Orchestra and the USF Percussion Ensemble directed by Robert McCormick.

    Fit is a short work that offers a glimpse at a musician’s frustration while practicing. The piece shows not only how hilariously insane performers can be in the practice room, but also how quickly their fits of panic can vanish with the smallest success.

  • Here Lies the Wub

    Andy Evan Cohen

    Andy Evan Cohen studied classical music at Oberlin and Manhattan School of Music, and enjoys writing pieces in that genre when he gets the chance. Usually, he is busy doing sound design, original music, and musical direction for theatre shows in New York City. For more information, visit him at www.andycomusic.com.

    Here Lies the Wub gets its title by merging a Philip K. Dick short story ("Beyond Lies the Wub") with a genre of electronic music popularly known as dubstep (whose signature sound is a low, pulsating "wub" noise). This piece is about communication, or the limitations thereof...

  • Wrinkle

    Marissa DePronio Dike

    Marissa DiPronio Dike is currently residing in Tampa, Florida, where she is studying composition at the University of South Florida under the instruction of Baljinder Sekhon and Paul Reller. During her time at USF, she has been the recipient of several awards and recognitions, including the University of South Florida’s 2012 Composition Merit Award and a Vox Novus Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame award. Her piece Blanco for solo harp was premiered in New York City by harpist Jasmin Cowin on January 13, 2013. She was also recently named a finalist in the 2013 Morton Gouls ASCAP awards.

    Wrinkle was composed in 2013 for contrabass clarinetist Alex Sramek. The piece calls for the performer to attach a sheet of paper over the bell of the instrument; whenever the low C is played, the paper rattles. Other extended techniques in the piece include glissandi, slap-tonguing, and timbre-trilling.

  • Sublimation

    Jon Fielder

    Jon Fielder is a composer of experimental electroacoustic and acoustic music. Jon looks to the sciences and his passion for natural landscapes as a primary source of inspiration. His music is also influenced by an interest in sound spatialization, algorithmic composition and strong focus on timbre and texture.

    Sublimation is based on the endothermic phase transition in which a solid-state substance turns immediately to a gas when heated, without passing through an intermediate liquid stage. In this piece, unpitched material represents the solid state, which transitions to pitched material (gaseous state) as impulse density increases.

  • dona nobis p

    Ari Frankel

    Ari Frankel feels, composes, writes, erases, rewrites, produces, directs, records, edits, mixes and masters. He tries to create good new music, inspired by Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon, Primo Levi and other achievers. He is sensitive and opinionated and mortally alive. For more, please visit www.arifrankel.com and www.slice.bz

    try to excuse power inflicting pain.. fail. explain compassion and kindness.. fail. plan chance versus fate, faith versus none.. fail. when you gotta go.. donna nobis spongia.

  • While You’re Down There

    Fermino Gomes

    Fermino Gomes (Patos, PB, Brasil) studied theory with Gazi Sa and João de Barro at Caipira University of Paraiba (UNICPB), Brazil. As well as an active composer, Fermino performs on the viola (Brazilian 10 string-folk guitar) regularly. Fermino currently lives in New York City.

    While You’re Down There explores the emotional highs and lows that this magnificent instrument can bring when in the hands and mouth of a master like Alex Sramek.

  • Clip Art

    Roger May

    Roger is a British composer and orchestrator, and has had his compositions played by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra. His music has won numerous awards and been played in both the UK and USA, and has also been performed throughout Europe and Asia. Further details at www.rogermay.co.uk.

    Using the theme ‘Thinking outside the paperclip’, Clip Art divides the register of the instrument: all notes in the central area are considered ‘clipped’ and therefore played as a tongue slap or key click. Those outside the controlled zone are played as normal tones and allow for more stylised playing.

  • MISSING-NO -1-

    Berk Özdemir

    Born in Amsterdam, 92. Started learning piano from his father at 3 years old. Studied with different teachers piano - solfeggio - theory until university. He has been into many different bands as keyboard - bass guitar player, recorded demos, made gigs. Now he is studying composition in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory with Mehmet Nemutlu.

    For this piece, I was inspired by Rob Clouth's "Vaetxh" project. I love the way he deflects the materials from their intended use. So this piece is my tribute to him. Also everyone knows that Missingno can be found on the right side of the Cinnabar Island. Make sure you put your item in the 6th row. WE ALL LOVE GLITCHES.

  • Between the Staves

    Bettie Ross

    Bettie Ross is an award-winning composer and keyboardist in a mixed contemporary classical and new age style with jazz, pop and blues tinges. She has two Gold Records for pipe organ, and her piano CD, "A Magical Time of Year," garnered two first place awards. Bettie’s website is www.bettieross.com.

    “Between the Staves”: While becoming familiar with Alex Sramek (and quite enjoying it!), the concept for this piece emerged – and presto, it was written. I’m sure Alex will give a delightful performance of this vignette which portrays what an orchestral player might be imagining . . . between the staves.

  • Prophecy Structure

    Daniel Schnee

    Daniel Schnee is a saxophonist who has performed worldwide with a number of Juno™ and Grammy™ Award winning musicians. He has been internationally recognized as a graphic score composer, and is a former student of Pulitzer Prize and Grammy™ Lifetime Achievement Award winning saxophonist Ornette Coleman. http://danielpaulschnee.wordpress.com/

    “Prophecy Structure” is a divining score written to announce fore coming improvisational trends. Alex Sramek, as medium, will interpret the score, and reveal via clarinet insights into the future of modern music to the audience-as-querent.

  • And Now

    Juan Maria Solare

    Juan Maria Solare, born 1966 in Argentina, works currently in Germany as composer, pianist (contemporary & tango) and teaching at the University of Bremen and at the Hochschule fuer Kuenste Bremen. His music has been performed in five continents. Eleven CDs of different performers include at least one piece of him. www.JuanMariaSolare.com

    And now? is what one asks when one doesn't know how to go on. At the crossroads. Before the irreversible. Before unpunished injustice. When one doesn't see way out, continuation nor future, sometimes not even past. A rhetorical question: one doesn't actually expect an answer - although one wishes some.

  • Microburst

    Lori Archer Sutherland

    Lori Archer Sutherland earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Theory and Composition from the Ohio State University and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She works as a public librarian while teaching private clarinet lessons and pursuing various playing and writing opportunities.

    Microburst explores the growling lowest register of the contrabass clarinet, but also shows off the wide range of the instrument. After a quick outburst, the clouds roll in until the storm hits. In a blink, the storm is over.

  • I Think I Have Ebola

    Ron Wray

    Ron Wray teaches and plays clarinet at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.