Title: Quintet
Commission: 1992
Completed: 1993
Instrumentation: clarinet and string quartet
Premiere Location: Mandel Hall, University of Chicago
Premiere Ensemble: University of Chicago Department of Music
Notes:

The American composer Mark Gustavson was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He began studying clarinet at eight and self-taught himself to compose and play piano at sixteen. In high school he began to play saxophone in jazz band and continued clarinet studies at the Music Institute of Chicago. He later went on to study clarinet and composition at Northern Illinois University, University of Illinois, Columbia University and Conservatory of Amsterdam.

Since the 1980s Gustavson’s music has run counter to many of the tendencies in music including the rejection of serial and minimal music. His music undertakes the quest to renew characterization and symbolism through a deep entanglement of many music worlds. The music can be heard as a transmutation of cultural and musical systems, not looking for common ground with various cultures but is making the statement that music is necessarily global.