Sidney Forrest Clarinet Competition, High School Division featured Jenni Brandon’s, Chansons de la Nature pour la Clarinet for Solo B-flat Clarinet as one of the required performance compositions. The College Division featured J.S. Bach, Chromatic Fantasy. Due to the continuing health crisis, the competition was held in a virtual Zoom format on Saturday, June 5, 2021. The competition was open to all clarinetists, ages 14–22. The winners are to be announced.

The Sidney Forrest Clarinet Competition was established in 2015 by Paula Forrest, in memory of her father. Ms. Forrest lives in Ames, Iowa, and is active as a pianist, teacher, and artistic director of the Ames Town and Gown Chamber Music Association. Additional benefactors are Erika Saunders, granddaughter of Sidney Forrest, and her husband, Brian Saunders.

This competition commemorates the significant influence of the renowned artist-teacher, Sidney Forrest (1918–2013), who taught clarinet to hundreds of students nationally and internationally while teaching at the Peabody Conservatory for 40 years, Interlochen Center for the Arts for 45 years, and the Catholic University of America for 50 years.

The competition is hosted by the University of Maryland’s Clarinet Professor, Robert DiLutis, as a major event during the annual Clarinet Symposium on the University of Maryland campus

Sidney Forrest’s vast collection of music for clarinet has been donated to the library of the International Clarinet Association, located in the Music Department’s Special Collections Library at the University of Maryland. We look forward to the collection being available soon.

Jenni Brandon’s, Chansons de la Nature pour la Clarinet for Solo B-flat Clarinet is inspired by the images presented in Aesop’s fables. Chansons de la Nature pour la Clarinette tells a story about nature as told by the clarinet’s agile voice. The French titles and basis of the pieces were inspired by the lyrical and pastoral quality of the French language and the images it invokes. The piece is also inspired by the images presented in Aesop’s fables (and Jean de la Fontain’s retelling of them); in particular, the movement “Le Lièvre et la Tortue” tells of the slow tortoise beating the fast hare with his patience and determination. Both creatures are represented in this movement, from the plodding of the tortoise to the quick movements of the hare.

The other movements also represent a variety of characters and situations from these famous fables. “Le Poisson” darts, “Le Papillon” flutters and floats, “L’étoile” shimmers in the night sky, nature ‘dances’, and “Le Serpent” is slippery and quick.  Each movement is short, but just long enough to evoke a story and create a ‘song of nature’ for the clarinet.

I. Les Oiseaux
II. Le Poisson
III. Le Papillon
IV. Le Lièvre et La Tortue
V. L’Etoile
VI. Dansez!
VII. Le Serpent