(light music) (jazz music) - [Announcer] This week on "Expressions", a classic episode, featuring Timothy Perry and Margaret Pej Reitz.

(jazz music continues) Go behind-the-scenes, with this special recital with interviews and rehearsal footage.

That's all tonight on "Expressions".

And now, here's your host, Adara Alston.

- Hello, and welcome to "Expressions".

For this episode, we are going back to 2019 to feature a recital with clarinet-est Timothy Perry, and pianist Margaret Pej Reitz.

These two long-time friends have been playing together for over 25 years, and they delighted the live studio audience with an eclectic set list.

They begin the program with the performance from French composer, Andre Messaer.

("Solo De Concours") ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) ("Solo De Concours" continues) (audience clapping) - I started playing the clarinet at the age of 10, through a public school program, back in Wisconsin where I grew up.

My parents were of the opinion that all of the children should learn to play an instrument and also take part in some kind of sport, a physical activity.

And, I was interested in the oboe, but that was financially out of reach for my parents, so they gave me a clarinet and convinced me it's pretty much the same thing.

And, by the time, a couple years later, an oboe became available, I was so attached to the clarinet that I stayed with that from that point to this, and a little more than 50 years now.

(light music) - I started playing the piano when I was eight-years-old.

I started, I was a dancer from three to eight, and my parents said, "You can't do both Pej, "you have to do one or the other, so take a pick, "and take your pick," so I chose the piano.

I was one of those kids where I can still remember it, like my friends would come and knock on the door and say, "Pej, come on out and play!"

It'd be after school.

I'd be like, "Can't come out, I got too much practicing to do."

("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas") ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) ("Ma mere L'oye: Empress of the Pagodas" continues) (audience clapping) My collaboration with Tim Perry is my longest running collaboration, he's my partners, and it's my favorite.

Right from the start, it was just, we're a match, we're just a fit, it's natural.

(soft music) - Our first performance came about because of an injury to our colleague pianist, Walter Ponce, who was here for many years.

And Walter had fallen and injured himself slightly and was unable to play on a Gaelic concert, that was going to be in a week, or a week-and-a-half time.

And so, Pej had recently come back to the area, and we put together a piece on short order, and found that we work very well together.

And Walter came back to us the next year when the United States Musical Ambassadors Program, which is run by the state department in the Kennedy Center, had a round of competition for artists.

- And, then it was Walter who said, "You guys need to enter this big competition."

So sure enough, we did, and we won.

- And I think the chemistry that we already had, just in that first year, was picked up by the judges, and they picked us to be the ambassadors for that year, and we did a 35, 36 concert tour of Latin America and the Caribbean.

(light music) (papers rustling) To find someone like Pej, who is so sympathetic, and is a remarkable, I mean one in 100,000 pianists can do what she does.

(soft music continues) One of the great blessings of my life is to have you know fallen into her orbit, and been able to play with her for a quarter century.

Because so many things with the right person come naturally, and that's really the way music should be, you can only technically push things so far.

But the best music is made naturally somewhere way behind your conscious mind.

(light music) Working with Pej has made that so much easier.

Many many professional musicians over the years have just, they're jealous when they come to a concert of ours because they say, "You can, you do things "without even thinking."

We can bend the time forward and backward to the same degree, and that's something that's very, you can't teach it, you know you just have to find it with a particular individual.

And, that's one thing we, that's why we enjoy so much working together, finding new pieces to explore.

("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello") (knock on piano) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) (knock on piano) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) (audience clapping) - Alec Templeton was a brilliant blind pianist, one of his most well known pieces was something called "Bach On The Town", and the idea, the entire idea of classical crossover starts with people like Alec Templeton.

He did write two specific clarinet sonatas which he called pocket sonatas because they're very very short, and, very much the jazz style of the period, but a lotta fun to play.

And something that very few instruments got from that particular era, a good piece of early jazz slash classical crossover music.

("Pocket Sonata No.

1 III In Time") ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) ("L'historie du Tango I. Bordello" continues) (audience clapping) As a classical musician, when we deal with notated music, we've been given this precious gift, but it is in a very abstract language that we have to decipher.

And a great deal of what is in the music is not on the page, so when people say that, "All you do is play the music," that's, nothing could be further from the truth.

The instrument is literally that, it's an instrument to help you express all the different emotional history of the human race.

("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera") ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) ("Scaramouche III.

Braziliera" continues) (audience clapping) - What a performance from Timothy Perry and Pej Reitz, here on this classic episode of "Expressions".

A reminder that you can visit wskg.org/expressions to find even more of their performance.

We hope you enjoyed this concert, and we'll be back soon with another great "Expressions" episode.

(light music) Until next time, this is Adara Alston.

(light music continues)