Seunghee Lee - Full Circle (2017)

Life’s journey is never a straight arrow but a set of continuous circles. Just as we are full of anticipation before embarking on a new journey, we soon find ourselves looking forward to coming back home with more gratitude, appreciation and a deeper understanding of what was already there. While my debut album was centered around core clarinet repertoire, in the three albums that followed, I ventured out into mainstream classical music, transcribing and arranging some of my favorite classical works that were originally written for other instruments. Through this experiment, I trained myself to sing through my clarinet like an opera singer, phrase long melodies like a concert pianist and play like a virtuosic violinist. It also created opportunities to reach out to modern day composers of different styles, accumulating many new clarinet pieces and a few of them are included here. Taking on different paths allowed me to stretch my imagination and collect wonderful musical ideas. Coming back full circle, I am delighted to present to you some of my favorite clarinet classics from a fresh perspective. Cheers! ~Seunghee Lee

Full Circle features a wonderful variety of works for clarinet & piano, such as Schumann’s “Fantasiestucke, Op. 73”, Paul Reade’s “Suite from the Victorian Kitchen Garden”, Niels Gade’s “Fantasy Pieces”, plus several world-premiere compositions such as Bent Sørensen’s “Romance” and Augusta Gross’s “Coming Home”. Also included is an exclusive world-premiere recording and re-publication by Carl Fischer of the “Three American Pieces” by Lukas Foss. “As a student, Lee fell in love with clarinet icon Richard Stoltzman's original arrangement and would later work directly with Lukas Foss to improve the piece's playability for performance on the clarinet. Lee has been performing her version for years and in tandem with the release of this edition, she is also releasing the world-premiere recording of the piece on her album, Full Circle.”-excerpt from an overview by Carl Fischer.