Opera without singers: in Opera Alta, the rare alto clarinet in F assumes the role of the human voice. Evgeni Orkin performs on a historic Buffet Crampon instrument dating from 1845, whose dark and richly coloured sound gives the album its distinctive character. Together with the Senza Parole String Quartet, he explores the world of nineteenth-century grand opera, from Verdi, Bellini and Donizetti to Bizet. Six virtuoso fantasies by Luigi Bassi, Donato Lovreglio, Ernesto Cavallini, Antonio Romero y Andía and Pablo de Sarasate draw on themes from Rigoletto, I Puritani, La Traviata, La Sonnambula, Lucrezia Borgia and Carmen. In Orkin's arrangements for alto clarinet in F and string quartet, these works become a kind of chamber opera without words: vocal lines, dramatic scenes and the brilliance of the great operatic paraphrase merge with the warm, resonant voice of the historic instrument. Opera Alta was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2024.

"Ach, wenn wir nur auch Clarinetti hätten!" - "If only we had clarinets too!" - Mozart wrote enthusiastically from Mannheim in 1778. His fascination with the sound of the clarinet, and later the basset horn, became an important element in some of his most remarkable music. The album revives an early nineteenth-century performance tradition. The arrangements of Mozart's opera arias heard here belong to a body of repertoire preserved in Sondershausen and associated with the celebrated clarinet virtuoso Johann Simon Hermstedt and the musicians of his court ensemble. Such operatic arrangements formed part of the music performed by Hermstedt and his musicians during the 1820s and 1830s, bringing the world of the opera house into an intimate instrumental setting. Evgeni Orkin revives this tradition on original period instruments dating from approximately 1770 to 1800. Two clarinets and two basset horns assume the roles of the human voices: arias, duets and ensembles from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Der Schauspieldirektor, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito become an opera without singers. The recording thus brings together Mozart's distinctive sound world of clarinets and basset horns with a historical performance tradition associated with Johann Simon Hermstedt. Opera Arias was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2022.

Two instruments, two cultures - and two almost parallel periods of flourishing. While the chalumeau became a characteristic voice of eighteenth-century European Baroque music, Japan witnessed the development of the great solo tradition of the shakuhachi, with its meditative honkyoku repertoire. Georg Philipp Telemann's Twelve Fantasias, TWV 40:2-13, originally composed for unaccompanied flute, are performed here on the chalumeau - the immediate predecessor of the clarinet and an instrument Telemann himself knew and employed in his works. Each Fantasia is preceded by a free improvisation on the shakuhachi. Two historical instruments whose traditions flourished during the eighteenth century in distant cultural worlds are thus brought face to face: the European single-reed instrument and the Japanese bamboo flute. Verses by Matsuo Bashō are recited between the musical sections. His concise hokku, today generally known as haiku, create another connection between sound, nature, the fleeting moment and silence. Telemann, shakuhachi and Bashō are not fused into a single musical language. Each retains its own identity. Their alternation instead creates a dialogue across distance and time - between two cultures of breath, silence and unaccompanied musical expression.

Three sonatas, two periods of Brahms's creative life, and the historical sound world of his time. This album places the late Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120 Nos. 1 and 2, alongside the Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, arranged for clarinet and piano by Evgeni Orkin. The Op. 120 Sonatas belong to the final years of Brahms's life and grew out of his encounter with clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. In them, the clarinet becomes an almost vocal instrument, moving from intimate cantabile to intensely dramatic expression. Op. 38 comes from a very different stage of Brahms's career. In Orkin's version for clarinet, the broad lines and dark Romantic character of the First Cello Sonata acquire a new timbral identity while retaining the density and inner tension of the original. The recording gains a further dimension through its historical instruments. Evgeni Orkin performs on original clarinets dating from the 1880s, while Olga Zheltikova plays a straight-strung Érard grand piano from 1875. The piano's transparent, less massive sonority and the distinctive response of the period clarinets alter the familiar balance between the two instruments and bring the music closer to the acoustic world of the late nineteenth century. Together, the three sonatas form not only a portrait of Brahms, but also a journey across several decades of his chamber music - from Op. 38 to the late clarinet works of Op. 120.

An encounter that was to transform the clarinet repertoire: in 1811, Carl Maria von Weber met the celebrated clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Joseph Baermann in Munich. Artistic admiration soon developed into a close personal friendship. That same year Weber composed his Concertino and two clarinet concertos for Baermann, and his chamber music involving the clarinet is closely connected with this remarkable musician. The two friends also travelled and performed together throughout Europe. In Celebration of a Friendship places side by side two works that reflect this relationship directly. Weber's Grand Quintetto in B-flat major, Op. 34, was created for Baermann and developed over several years into a musical portrait of his brilliant yet intensely vocal style of clarinet playing. Opposite it stands Heinrich Baermann's Sonata in D minor, Op. 31, heard here with string quartet - a work that Baermann in turn dedicated to Carl Maria von Weber. Composer and performer thus exchange roles: the virtuoso becomes a composer himself and answers his friend through music. Evgeni Orkin performs on an original clarinet dating from around 1820, bringing the recording close to the sound world in which Weber and Baermann developed their shared conception of the Romantic clarinet. In Celebration of a Friendship is therefore more than a pairing of two works: it is the musical document of a friendship from which some of the most important pages of early Romantic clarinet literature emerged.

A single instrument - yet an entire world of sound. Modern Clarinet Classics traces a panorama of twentieth-century clarinet music through six works, revealing how radically the instrument's sound, expression and playing techniques evolved within only a few generations. The journey begins with Igor Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo, early classics of the modern solo repertoire. They are followed by Edison Denisov's Sonata, Luciano Berio's monumental Sequenza IXa, Yevhen Stankovych's Concerto for Clarinet Solo "Game on the Edge of an Abyss", and Stephan Marc Schneider's Inschrift. The programme concludes with Evgeni Orkin's own Jewish Suite, Op. 10, in which elements of Jewish and klezmer-related musical language enter a contemporary solo composition. The album thus moves from Stravinsky's concentrated economy through the sonic and technical extremes of the post-war avant-garde to a musical language in which personal and cultural memory once again becomes directly audible. Throughout the recording, the clarinet appears in constantly changing roles: as melodic voice, rhythmic instrument, resonating body and an almost polyphonic medium. Modern Clarinet Classics presents the twentieth-century solo repertoire not merely as a succession of experiments, but as an exploration of ever-new forms of musical expression through a single instrument. Recorded in 2009, the album was released by Coviello Classics.

Mozart in concentrated form: Kegelduette & Divertimenti brings together two groups of intimate chamber works in which melodic invention, playful dialogue and Mozart's characteristic balance of lightness and expression unfold within the smallest possible dimensions. The Twelve Kegelduette, K. 487/496a, are concise and highly varied character pieces. Two equal voices meet in a constantly changing dialogue of lyricism, dance, humour and contrapuntal play. Reduced to only two melodic lines, Mozart's musical language becomes particularly transparent and immediate. The Five Divertimenti, K. Anh. 229/439b, expand this intimate world into three parts. In the version for two clarinets and bass clarinet, the music acquires the unified sonority of a single instrumental family, ranging from the agility and brightness of the upper voices to the warm foundation of the bass clarinet. The recording thus presents Mozart not as the composer of grand operas or symphonies, but as a master of miniature form - music in which only a few voices are needed to create an entire world of characters, colours and musical conversation. Kegelduette & Divertimenti was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.

Der Schummeltrompeter is a musical audio drama by Evgeni Orkin, who wrote both the texts and the music. Inspired by the grotesque tradition of Struwwelpeter, it creates an entirely new world of musical stories - this time centred on the music school, instruments, practising, learning and the small and large disasters of a musician's everyday life. With humour, exaggeration and a playful sense of the absurd, the individual episodes follow young musicians, their instruments, excuses and adventures. Words and music were conceived from the outset as a single dramatic whole: the music does not merely accompany the stories, but comments on the action, sharpens the punchlines and becomes part of the storytelling itself. The recording features musicians from the Städtische Musikschule Frankenthal, with Hans-Jürgen Thoma and Daniel Kauer in the speaking roles. The result is a modern musical relative of Struwwelpeter - a collection of humorous musical tales for children and adults about learning, practising and, above all, the pleasure of making music. Text and music: Evgeni Orkin. Der Schummeltrompeter - Lustige Musikgeschichten mit der Städtischen Musikschule Frankenthal was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.

The title Der Wandervirtuose - "The Travelling Virtuoso" - evokes the itinerant instrumentalists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, musicians who carried their art from city to city and transformed the solo concerto into a vehicle for individual virtuosity. Evgeni Orkin performs on original English clarinets dating from approximately 1790 to the 1810s, whose distinctive sonority and response bring the sound world of the period vividly to life. The album brings together three major Classical-period concertos: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Clarinet Concerto K. 622, Franz Krommer's Clarinet Concerto in E-flat major, Op. 36, and Mozart's Concerto K. 314, originally written for oboe and here entrusted to the clarinet. Presented in versions for clarinet, string quartet and piano, the works acquire the intimacy and flexibility of chamber music without losing their concerto-like brilliance and dramatic momentum. Together with the Dorado Ensemble and pianist Stanislav Rosenberg, Evgeni Orkin combines solo virtuosity with the direct musical dialogue of a small ensemble - an imaginary journey into the world of the Classical travelling virtuoso. Der Wandervirtuose was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2022.

American Dream explores the musical world of the twentieth century - a space between European tradition, migration, jazz and the emergence of a distinctively American musical language. The album brings together George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Paul Hindemith's Clarinet Sonata, Sergei Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes and Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Copland's concerto are presented in Evgeni Orkin's chamber arrangements for clarinet, piano and string quartet. A distinctive perspective is created by the instruments themselves: Evgeni Orkin performs on an original clarinet dating from around 1890, while Olga Zheltikova plays a Steinway grand piano from approximately 1890. Instruments from the end of the nineteenth century thus encounter music that, only a few decades later, would open the door to an entirely new sound world. Together with Olga Zheltikova and the Dorado Ensemble, Evgeni Orkin traces a path from the European chamber-music tradition to the jazz-inflected language of Gershwin and Copland - a musical exploration of the many meanings of the American Dream. American Dream was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2021.

Three names inseparably linked in the history of Romantic music: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Their lives were connected across decades by artistic affinity, friendship, admiration, intimacy and loss. Love Letters approaches the music of this circle as a form of correspondence - messages beginning where words are no longer sufficient. Johannes Brahms's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, composed in 1891, is placed alongside a work Robert Schumann never wrote: an imagined Clarinet Quintet in A minor, created by Evgeni Orkin from Schumann's Fantasiestücke, Op. 73, and Drei Romanzen, Op. 94, and transformed into a four-movement cycle for clarinet and string quartet. Both original works date from Schumann's exceptionally productive year of 1849, and their lyrical, vocal character is reimagined here in the sonority of the clarinet quintet. Clara Schumann is musically present in this constellation as well. Both the Fantasiestücke and the Drei Romanzen formed part of her own concert repertoire. After Robert Schumann's death, Johannes Brahms became one of her closest artistic and personal confidants. Clara thus stands between the two composers not merely as a biographical figure, but almost as an invisible link between their musical worlds. Evgeni Orkin performs on an original clarinet dating from around 1880. Its warm, dark sonority leads directly into the late-Romantic sound world from which Brahms's Quintet emerged. Love Letters thus becomes a musical dialogue across several decades - between Robert, Clara and Johannes, between memory and the present, and between letters written and letters never written.

Three works of early Romanticism reveal three different faces of the clarinet - as a singing voice, a virtuoso solo instrument and an equal partner to the piano. Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D 821, originally composed in 1824 for the now almost forgotten arpeggione, is heard here in Evgeni Orkin's transcription for clarinet and piano. The original's long cantabile lines and wide range are transferred into the distinctly vocal language of the clarinet. Felix Mendelssohn's early Clarinet Sonata, MWV Q15, is likewise presented in a new version by Evgeni Orkin. The original clarinet part has been expanded and developed into a more virtuosic solo line, allowing the instrument's possibilities to emerge more fully while preserving the musical substance and youthful Romantic character of Mendelssohn's work. Carl Maria von Weber's Grand Duo concertant, Op. 48, provides the brilliant counterpart: rather than a solo with accompaniment, it is a virtuoso dialogue between two equal instruments, with clarinet and piano challenging, answering and propelling one another. The programme is further united by its historical sound perspective. Evgeni Orkin performs on an original clarinet dating from around 1820, while Olga Zheltikova plays a straight-strung Pleyel grand piano from 1848. Two instruments from the first half of the nineteenth century thus meet in a transparent and highly differentiated balance markedly different from that of a modern clarinet and concert grand. The recording is therefore both an exploration of the Romantic past and an expansion of its repertoire: Schubert is opened to the clarinet, Mendelssohn is reconsidered from within, and Weber is experienced through the original idea of virtuoso partnership between clarinet and piano.

How much of a composer can be recognised within just a few minutes of music? Hommages plays with musical identities, memories and styles - and with the clarinet's remarkable ability to continually transform its voice. The starting point is the celebrated series of Hommages by the Hungarian clarinettist and composer Béla Kovács. Nine virtuoso miniatures evoke Johann Sebastian Bach, Niccolò Paganini, Carl Maria von Weber, Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, Richard Strauss, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Aram Khachaturian. Rather than simply imitating their music, Kovács condenses characteristic melodic gestures, harmonies and instrumental techniques into sharply drawn musical portraits. Evgeni Orkin continues this idea in his own Hommages, Op. 51. Jean Françaix, Olivier Messiaen, Carl Nielsen, Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin and Benny Goodman are viewed through the voice of the clarinet. The musical language expands accordingly - from twentieth-century modernism to jazz rhythms, improvisatory gestures and the world of Benny Goodman. The album concludes with Orkin's Hommage à Astor Piazzolla, Op. 51a. Here the single clarinet expands into an ensemble of five clarinets, while elements of nuevo tango extend the stylistic journey still further. The result is a musical portrait gallery stretching from Bach to Piazzolla - at once a journey through several centuries of musical history and through the extraordinary expressive range of the clarinet. Hommages was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.

Le Vitrail - "The Stained-Glass Window" - is an album of chamber music by Evgeni Orkin for clarinet and saxophone ensembles. Three different groups of works are linked by a common idea: individual colours, lines and fragments combine to form a larger musical image. The album opens with Ganz im Sinne des Tangos, Op. 49 - two pieces exploring the rhythm, gesture and energy of tango without merely imitating its style. They are followed by the five Mosaics, Op. 14, in their version for saxophone quartet: concise, contrasting pieces placed alongside one another like differently coloured stones in a mosaic. At the centre of the recording is the seven-part cycle Le Vitrail, Op. 63, for clarinet and saxophone ensemble. As in a stained-glass window, the complete image emerges from individual fields of different colours and shapes. Clarinets and saxophones provide a broad palette of related yet contrasting sonorities, overlapping, separating and continually recombining. The recording is distinctive in another respect as well: every clarinet and saxophone part is performed by Evgeni Orkin himself. Composer and performer thus become one, with the different instruments and registers forming the individual colours of a single musical image shaped by one musician. The album brings together three visual and musical ideas - tango, mosaic and stained glass - in a highly personal portrait of Orkin's chamber music for clarinets and saxophones. Music and all instrumental parts: Evgeni Orkin. Le Vitrail was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.

What happens when the grotesque world of Struwwelpeter encounters the music of Mozart? The famous stories by Heinrich Hoffmann - comic, disturbing and deliberately exaggerated - together with texts by Wilhelm Busch, are narrated in this recording by Evgeni Orkin and combined with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for two and three clarinets. The character of the recording grows precisely from this contrast: grotesque figures, drastic consequences and the dark humour of nineteenth-century moral tales meet Mozart's lightness, elegance, playfulness and musical wit. The clarinets comment on the stories, create transitions, contradict the spoken word or intensify its comic effect. Literature and chamber music thus become a musical audio drama for children and adults alike - poised between storytelling, black humour and Mozart. Der Struwwelpeter was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.

Electromarin reveals a different side of Evgeni Orkin: not the clarinettist and interpreter of historical repertoire, but the composer and performer working directly with electronic sound. The album consists of 21 short compositions unfolding like a sequence of musical snapshots. Playful titles such as Funny Moon, Funky Monkey, Rock 'n' Run and And the Cool Bubble stand alongside more atmospheric pieces such as Foggy and Breathing Space. A recurring thread is formed by the four pieces Sotetsu 1-4, which reappear at different points throughout the album. Rather than relying on traditional formal models, the music focuses on colour, rhythm, repetition, sudden contrasts and the direct shaping of electronic material. Many of the pieces are deliberately concise: miniature electronic scenes, character pieces and musical experiments that together form a multifaceted sonic diary. Composed and performed by Evgeni Orkin. Electromarin was released by Orkin Music Laboratory in 2015.