A 2012 Delos recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra performed by David Shifrin and the Northwest Chamber Orchestra has been inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. Others among the 25 recordings included in the class of 2023 are “The Very First Mariachi Recordings,” “St. Louis Blues” by Handy’s Memphis Blues Band, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.” This year’s selections, announced on April 12, bring the number of titles on the registry to 625, a small portion of the national library’s vast recorded sound collection of nearly four million items.
As the Library of Congress announcement describes: “Composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich had already written the first movement of this work when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 took place. Clarinetist David Shifrin leads the Northwest Chamber Orchestra on this live recording made in Portland, Oregon, in 2004. He and several members of the ensemble had performed its premiere a year earlier, and their feeling for it comes through in the buoyancy of the first movement, suggesting the hustle and bustle of a normal working day in New York City, and in the violence, anger and sorrow of the rest of the day expressed in the subsequent movements. The 2012 CD release of this performance, and its enduring impact and reputation, are singular for a 21st century classical recording.”
Read the Library of Congress announcement here.
Listen to Zwilich’s Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra on YouTube here.
