Part 2 of my Spotlight series on solo clarinet works by women composers takes a look at For an Actor: Monologue for Clarinet, by Shulamit Ran.
Immediately, For an Actor is set apart from most solo clarinet repertoire due to its instrumentation – Ran calls for the instrument in A, rather than the much more common B-flat clarinet. On a side note – I love playing the A clarinet, and I wish it would be called for more frequently by contemporary composers. While some composers allow either, such as in Augusta Read Thomas’s D(i)agon(als), few ask for it specifically. To my ear, Ran’s choice gives the piece a slightly darker tone than it would otherwise have.
