Straight from the Internet and YouTube and Earspasm, Backun Artist, Michael Lowenstern, and his partner in crime, band director & clarinetist Katherine Cooke, will demonstrate and discuss how to teach beginning bass clarinet students to succeed.
The session will also focus on equipment—and because bass clarinets are annoyingly complex, we will give a few pointers on how to keep your bass clarinets from sounding like vacuum cleaners…or worse.
Michael Lowenstern
- Biographical Information
Michael Lowenstern is widely recognized as one of the most innovative bass clarinetists in the world, and has performed, recorded, and toured as a soloist and with ensembles of every variety.
Career highlights include long tenures with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and John Zorn, touring with ensembles as diverse as the Steve Reich Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Klezmatics, and a stint with the New Jersey Symphony as its bass clarinetist. To date, he can be heard on over sixty recordings, three of which have won Grammy awards. Michael has also released eight solo albums…none of which won Grammy awards.
Michael launched earspasm.com in 1997, initially as a website to sell his first CD, “Spasm.” Over the past 25 years, Earspasm has expanded into the most comprehensive clarinet and bass clarinet online shop in the world, serving single-reed players from across the globe.
Michael is currently in his 14th year creating content for his YouTube channel, to the delight (and consternation) of millions of viewers across the globe. Lowenstern is a Backun Artist, having contributed to the design of their new bass clarinet, and plays Vandoren mouthpieces, ligatures and reeds. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and partner Katherine Cooke, and dog Piper.
Clarinetist Katherine Cooke has dedicated her career to ensuring that music education is accessible for all, regardless of financial, educational, or geographic barriers, and she maintains a private studio of clarinetists who visit both virtually and in person. As a part of her work developing a curriculum for early-stage music education, she is on the international committee for the development of the Suzuki Method for Clarinet, and contributed to Dr. Kristen Denny Chambers Finger Fitness Etudes Books 1, 2, and 3, as well as Shawn Copeland and Jacqueline McIlwain’s book, Body Mapping for Clarinetists. She is in her 11th year as a faculty member at the Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn and in her 25th year at the Diller-Quaile School of Music in Manhattan.
After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy with honors, Ms Cooke earned her Bachelor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, and her Master of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her primary teachers include Ignatius Gennusa, Richard MacDowell, John Mohler, Kelly Burke and Russell Dagon. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern, and dog Piper.