This morning I received a personal note from clarinetist José Franch-Ballester to let me know about his October 13 recital at Poisson Rouge with pianist/composer Adam Neiman. I first met José during the summer of 2008; you can read the text of our conversation for SundayArts here.

The Poisson Rouge concert mixes new and old music, but it’s of particular interest to me because it will feature two movements from Cookbook, a suite for clarinet and piano by the Brooklyn-based composer Kenji Bunch, who is also a violist. Both Neiman and Bunch are very active in the new-music scene, so if you’re free, this concert is worth checking out.

José, originally from Spain but now based in Philadelphia, sounded jazzed-up about the Poisson Rouge event—which includes works by Brahms, Poulenc, Chopin, Arturo Marquez, Neiman, and Bunch—and he e-chatted with me briefly about the music.

One of Arturo Marquez’s most famous pieces is the Danzon No. 2; Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela frequently play it as an encore piece. The piece we are playing at Poisson Rouge—Sarabandeo—combines the danzoneo and tangueo forms. The name comes from Sarabande, and although we don’t know the origins of this dance, we do know it was very sensual…. I discovered the piece when Adam and I chose it for a performance at the Festival Cervantino in Mexico—I always like to play a piece of a composer of the country where I am playing, so I can learn more about the culture and musical styles there.

The two Kenji Bunch pieces come from a suite for clarinet and piano called Cookbook. It was a commission for me that I premiered in New York in 2005. Kenji thinks that composing and cooking are very similar; it all depends how we use the ingredients. He composed four movements, and we will play the last two. All of them are about music and food. The movement “Heirloom” is related to Heirloom tomatoes, Kenji’s favorite food; it is a very deep piece, based on the old American style. “La ultima noche en la casa del flamenco” (the last night at the house of flamenco) is based on an experience Kenji had in a Spanish restaurant in Brooklyn called Casa de Flamenco. He went back there when he was composing the piece and realized that it went out of business!

Kenji Bunch’s program notes for a previous performance of Cookbook state, “I love food. I love hearing it sizzle, smelling it waft out from other apartment doors, seeing it on a plate in front of me, and of course, I love eating it at any time, day or night.” It’s kind of nice that his piece is being performed in a concert space where you can drink and eat.Images: (right) photo of Kenji Bunch by Erica Lin, (left) photo of Adam Neiman