Contra Costa: Quirk of fate brings musicians together

PLEASANT HILL — A quirk of fate powered-up the orchestra-like sound of Karen Weber’s Clarinet Fusion ensemble, growing from four to eight players and expanding the group’s instrumental performance.

Professional clarinetist Diane Maltester and her musical husband John were on an evening stroll in their Pleasant Hill neighborhood when the sound of a clarinet rehearsal drew them to the Weber’s home.

“What are the odds?” Tom Weber asked rhetorically.

Karyn Weber had been building the ensemble since 2009, recruiting high-caliber musicians like former Walnut Creek Concert Band’s Hal Wright, occasionally inviting directors to work with the group during formative years, and always open to collaboration.

So when the Maltesters’ appeared at her door, it seemed like destiny.

“Diane challenges them to elevate their performance, energy and technique to its highest level,” said Tom Weber, Clarinet Fusion business manager.

Maltester performs with the Oakland-East Bay, Vallejo and Fremont symphonies, Walnut Creek Festival Opera, is co-director of the Diablo Wind Symphony, and instructs at Saint Mary’s College. She immediately became a Clarinet Fusion supporter, mentor and occasional performer.

Mentors from the San Francisco Symphony Community of Music Makers have also helped refine their ensemble performances. Clarinet Fusion has been chosen for the third consecutive year to participate in the Music Maker’s mentor’s workshop, culminating with a Davies Hall performance.

Most Clarinet Fusion members have other careers and they all perform with other musical entities. Karyn Weber rehearses three times a week with other groups, and discovered most of her members from within those ranks.

Danielle Napoleon said she performs with the “Ohlone Band, Walnut Creek Concert Band, Oakland Civic Orchestra and the Awesome Orchestra in Oakland, as well as Clarinet Fusion.

“In the first 21 days of December, I have 22 rehearsal or performance dates, but I love it,” said the Martinez resident.

After graduating from college with a degree in music, Napoleon chose a government career for its economic stability.

“With Clarinet Fusion I still have the creative process … We have the variety of styles and creative musicality of playing without a director,” she said. “It’s like a family. We are all actual friends.”

Fusion family members contribute ideas, supplies, graphics, refreshments, transportation and ushering services to support the creative endeavor.

Typical of “Fusionists:” the study of music since childhood. Architect David Rausch, of Martinez, played B flat clarinet and saxophone in high school, and part-time while at UC Berkeley.

Rausch said he sustained his love of clarinet playing with the Concord Community Band, which morphed into the Walnut Creek Community Band.

According to Rausch, Karyn Weber’s extensive music library and new arrangements account for his constant growth as a musician.

“We are reaching out to composers (Matt Johnson of Seattle, and Philip Buttall from the United Kingdom) who are able to write special pieces for clarinet.”

Fusion members are constantly challenged to play different instruments.

“With clarinets, it’s more harmonious. When you find a good arrangement and play contra base, you get all of the lower-range notes normally played by other orchestral instruments,” Rausch said.

The eight regular members, two associate members, and occasional guest performers say that playing instruments from a tiny sopranino clarinet to a contra bass clarinet in BBflat in a repertoire that includes classics, show tunes, jazz and more, keeps the music fresh.

“There is nothing like it,” Rausch observed. “Without a director, we listen more carefully for dynamic and tonal balance.”

The synergy Rausch describes would not be possible without Dr. Lawrence E. Anderson, founder of the Danville Community Band. Anderson is the former UC Davis band director who first taught Karyn and Tom Weber, and George and Katrinka March before they married.

After Anderson retired, he tapped George March for the Danville band, and Karyn Weber recruited March as a founding member of Clarinet Fusion.

March is now Danville Community Band business manager and has played clarinet all his life, with only college geography studies, a short environmental drafting career and second career as stay-at-home dad as interruptions.

Although they met in band, George’s veterinarian wife Katrinka has focused more on her practice.

Contact Dana Guzzetti at [email protected] or call 925-202-9292.

Every Fusion member is a dedicated musician. They uniformly love the clarinet sound and have arrived at Clarinet Fusion by equally interesting paths. Karyn Weber said she is more convinced than ever that the “Fusion” part of the name means more than ever.

Contact Dana Guzzetti at [email protected] or call 925-202-9292.