Michael Drapkin's Music

(Updated 24 May 2018)


Michael Drapkin
Clarinet/Bass Clarinetist Michael Drapkin is known throughout the orchestral bass clarinet world through his series of orchestral excerpt books, Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volumes One, Two and the recently released Volume Three. His books have become standard literature for bass clarinet orchestral study worldwide for the last 28 years, and are now referenced as a source for many bass clarinet orchestra auditions.

Michael Drapkin was a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Principal and Bass Clarinet and the New York City Opera Touring Company and Lake George Opera Festival, as Principal Clarinet. He has spent summers playing at Aspen and at Tanglewood as a Berkshire Music Center fellow, and is an active chamber musician and performer. Michael Drapkin is a Selmer Performing Artist.



Mr. Drapkin is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he studied with acclaimed master clarinet teacher D. Stanley Hasty, toured Japan with the Eastman Wind Ensemble under Donald Hunsberger, and played Principal Clarinet in the Eastman Philharmonia under David Effron. He also studied clarinet with Gary Gray, Charles Bay and Harold Wright.

He has also performed with the New Jersey Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Portland Symphony, the Long Island Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and with conductors Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Michael Tilson Thomas, Neville Marriner, Leonard Slatkin, Lucas Foss, Christopher Keene, Klaus Tennstedt, Frederick Fennell, and many more celebrated orchestras and maestros.

In addition to his career as a symphony orchestra clarinetist and bass clarinetist, he has published numerous books and articles spanning three fields, was Chair of eCommerce Management at Columbia University, held positions as a Chief Information Officer and leadership positions with firms ranging from startup to multinational firms and the Fortune 500. He has been commissioned to write for the New York Times, interviewed in numerous articles, and has been a frequent public speaker on subjects ranging from marketing to future trends in the economy, and has appeared on the radio on CBS Marketwatch and on television on CNBC, where he discussed the future of music on the Internet.

He is the Executive Director of the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship, an organization dedicated to restructuring the fine arts world by balancing the oversupply of artists and lack of demand for their skills by teaching artists to become entrepreneurs for the arts and boosting demand.
 

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Books and Music marked "New!" in gold type are new publications.  Those marked "New!" in teal type are new to our stock.

Excerpts and Parts

C042: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volume One by Michael Drapkin, Roncorp Publications, SS, 70 pages. This recently reprinted edition is based on the corrected version released in early 2003. This book includes 36 excerpts selected from the standard symphonic literature, some more obscure works with noteworthy bass clarinet solos, and additional pieces that frequently appear on audition lists. Composers include Gershwin, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and more. An number of the excerpts are in bass clef and several are for bass clarinet in A. The author recently noted, "It has been 24 years since the original release, and this reprint provided me the opportunity to make a couple of corrections, most notably the correct transposition of the bass clarinet part to the Berg Violin Concert, as well as some misspellings." Click on the cover image to view Table of Contents.  Use your browser's Back button to return. 
23.95
C243: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volume Two by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp Publications, 2004, SS, 64 pages. This volume includes excerpts of works by Barber, Bartok, Copland, Dvorak, Mahler, Musorgsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg, Schuman, Shostakovich, Strauss, Stravinsky, and Walton. Click on the cover image to view Table of Contents.
23.95
C740: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volume Three by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp Publications, 2006/2018, SS, 66 pages. The latest volume in this series includes excerpts from works by Barber, Bartok, Bloch, Copland, Dvorak, Grofe, Holst, Janacek, Mahler, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Respighi, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Webern. Click on the cover image to view Table of Contents. Note that the $21.95 price is temporary as the copies of this book now have a price listed of $24.95.
21.95
C2402: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volume Four by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp Publications/Northeastern Music Publications, 2016, SB, 69 pages. This volume has A bass clarinet parts transposed for the B-flat bass clarinet:  Gustave Mahler Symphonies No. 7 and 8; Richard Wagner Prelude to Isolde's Love Death, Ride of the Valkyries, and Prelude to Act I from the opera Lohengrin; Antonin Dvorak Scherzo Capriccioso; Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2; Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel) Pictures at an Exhibition; and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Ballet.
23.95
C2422: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet, Volume Five by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp Publications/Northeastern Music Publications, 2016, SB, 81 pages. This volume has A bass clarinet parts transposed for the B-flat bass clarinet: Bela Bartok Dance Suite, Gustave Mahler Symphonies No. 4 and 6, Sergei Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances and Symphony No. 3, Maurice Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand and La Valse, and Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier Suite.
23.95
SRBCSpec: Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet Special. All five volumes of this series at a discounted price.

Note: If you order 3 or 4 volumes of this series we will take $2.00 off the cost of each volume when we process your order. Please order each volume individually.
105.95



Music (in order by composer)
C1065: Tempest Hora for Clarinet and Piano by Grigoras Dinicu arranged by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp, 2004, SS, 8 + 4 pages. Grigoras Dinicu (1889-1949) was a Romanian Romani composer and violinist. This is a fast moving Eastern European dance. College level with a duration of about 3:30. You can watch and listen as Michael Drapkin plays it on YouTube.
16.00
C1066: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Op. 28 for Clarinet in A and Piano (originally for violin and orchestra) by Camille Saint-Saëns arranged by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp, 2002, SS, 16 + 8 pages. This piece was written for violinist Pablo de Sarasate in 1863. It works very well on clarinet and may be played with the original orchestral parts (which are available in the Orchestral Musician's CD-ROM Library Vol. 2). An alternate part for Clarinet 1 is included for this purpose. This edition was premiered by John Bruce Yeh and the Glenbrook Symphony Orchestra in 2002.
16.00

WW155: Verdi Three Arias for Two Clarinets and Bassoon by Giuseppe Verdi arranged by Michael Drapkin. Roncorp, 1983. Arrangements of "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto, "Un di felice, etera" from La Traviata, and "Parigi, o cara" also from La Traviata. The parts are a neat manuscript and include portions of the other parts when they are helpful to ensure a good ensemble.
15.00

Bindings:  HB: Hard Bound,  PB: Perfect Bound (paperback with square spine),  SS: Saddle Stitch (paper, folded and stapled),  SB: Spiral Bound (plastic or metal, comb or spiral).