100 v - vandoren paris · clarinet), as far as materials are concerned, everything remains to be...

Vandoren - 56, rue Lepic, 75018 ParisTel.: (+33) 01 53 41 83 00 • Fax: (+33) 01 53 41 83 01 • email: [email protected] • Web site: www.vandoren.com

Registered: November 2005Publishing director: Bernard Van Doren • Chief editor: Anne-Sophie Van Doren

With the participation of Louis Hauser, Nadine Marchal, Jean-Marie Paul, Jean RapennePhotos: Nicolas Roux Dit Buisson, Vandoren

Translated by Jeffrey Grice

Conception, layout, printing: Christophe Hauser / La Maison. Tel.: 01 44 90 02 20. [email protected]

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P H O T O A L B U M

Giving back to music all it has given to us…

I am proud to offer you this special centennial edition in a yearwhich has proven rich and exciting in every respect. I wantedit convivial and confidential but also very clear and compre-hensive from a technical point of view. We need to keep youinformed about our products, your fidelity merits straightfor-wardness and transparency. It also retraces the stages of evolu-tion Vandoren has experienced in a century. Though built upon a heritage and a rich past, the firm can only gain in strength if our future prospects are promising. With the passing of time, tools, machinery and products are being perfected, but know-how remains the same… We are far closer to you now than yesterday. May tomorrow bring us evencloser. I am optimistic about the future: it belongs to theyoung generations, for us as much as for you.We have to give back to music all it has given to us…

Bernard VAN DOREN

CONTENTS

C D R O M O F 1 0 0 V A N D O R E N P H O T O S . A B O V E : A S C A R F D E S I G N E D B Y N A D I N E M A R C H A L L

F O R T H E V A N D O R E N C E N T E N N I A L .

4 MOUTHPIECES AND REEDS, THE INSIDE STORY

10 A PASSION FOR INNOVATION

16 THE FAMILY SPIRIT

18 UP THE RUE LEPIC


M O U T H P I E C E S A N D R E E D S , T H E I N S I D E S T O R Y


About reeds


Vandoren, a century

of achievement

A seemingly endlessrange of reeds…

Each reed corresponds to a certaintype of music. Vandoren’s widerange of reeds add the finishingtouch to every variety of embouchure.Ever wondered why there are somany different women’s lip-sticks?It’s a bit like that…

Technical progress and tradition. Has the cut of the reed changed inthe course of the century? Though theprinciple remains the same, therehas been a marked evolution. The cutis still unique and the reed is still thesame, but manufacturing procedureshave made significant advances.

Changing the cut?Modifying the cane?A much debated subject, but in alltruth, no-one can claim that today’scane is any better than yesterday’s.There are natural and inalterablecharacteristics…Cane is a plant, ofthe graminae family, and subject tospecific stages of development. The

shoot takes two years to grow, has tobe always cut in winter, put out in thesun to get its golden colour, and thenleft to dry naturally in a ventilatedwarehouse, a process which alsotakes two years…Advances havebeen more significant in terms ofwhat can be reproduced. Forexample, a reed of an identical musi-cal quality can now be reproduceddespite the natural differences inplants. We have also made conside-rable progress with regard to the pre-cise selection of reeds. The range ofstrengths, even though unchanged,is now far more detailed. Once,artists had to be content with“medium hard” or “medium soft”reeds. In 1986, we created halfstrengths in order to focalise moreintensely this large spectrum. Inorder to answer the musician’s speci-fic requirements, we perfected amachine capable of measuring thestrength of the reed, or to be moreprecise, its stiffness, its elasticity.The machine that allowed the attri-bution of half strengths has now

such a degree of precision that weare able to measure a reed right downto the tenth of a strength.

Vandoren, a leader in the field…Not only do we try to meet thedemands of musicians, we also tryto foresee them…For example, revo-lutionary “Flow Packs” now wrapreeds individually, maintaining anunsurpassed hygrometric stabilityuntil their opening. Imagine everyreed as factory fresh as if just picked up from our workshop in thesouth of France!

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Eugène Van Doren(1873-1940).

Clarinettist with the ConcertsColonne and at the Paris Opera,

he founded the business in 1905. His passion for

mechanical engineering led himto construct a machine

for manufacturing reeds.Vandoren reeds became

famous overnight.

Flow Pack


It was just a fewyears prior to thewar that the veryfirst signed Vandoren mouthpiecesappeared. In 1936, Robert boughtthe little Perfecta workshop in LaCouture Boussey and began manu-facturing. Then, once 56 rue Lepicwas ready to get underway, all themanufacturing equipment was trans-ferred to the new Paris workshop.These first mouthpieces had veryclosed facings, offering a brilliant,sonorous tone. After a certainamount of experimentation, Robertperfected the 5RV, a project so dearto him that he gave his own initialsto his new-born “babe”, marking thebeginning of the 5RV era (he thenwent on to develop a whole range of5RV: 5RV lyre…). Acclaimed andadopted by top musicians, personal-ly recommended by Ulysse Delécluse,they toured the world, makingVandoren a household name in thefield of mouthpiece manufacturing.But in the thriving sixties, the familybusiness was only putting out 500mouthpieces a month, and it was upto Bernard to expand manufacturingpotential. Optimised by his drive,the firm now manufactures 10,000mouthpieces a month. But an entirecentury takes a while to cross andVandoren’s story is punctuated with

numerous technical innovations andother artistic subtleties.Colour in the mouthpiece forcolour in the playing?…In line with the culturally boomingseventies, Vandoren revolutionisedthe aesthetic of its mouthpieces.Hair was growing shoulder length,shirts were turning floral, mouth-pieces became coloured. First a redmouthpiece was launched, and thena blue one. The reason? A differentlook on life… “I thought a musicianmight like to blow into a colouredmouthpiece”, explains Bernard, thecreator of this audacious idea.

Is the crystal mouthpiece, a trans-parency that had gone out offashion, catching on again?Crystal was more of a trend at thetime of Eugène but as in the case ofcoloured mouthpieces, aestheticinnovations in the seventies hadtheir way. A new taste for this trans-parent precious matter was laun-ched by an Italo-American by thename of Gino Cioffi. Since then,Italians hold the monopoly of crystalmouthpiece manufacturing.

1968… aesthetic revolution…acoustic evolution1968, a time when new sono-rities were all the rage.

Vandoren, keen to be up to date, wasquick to surf on the new acousticalwave. Which gave rise to the B45,Bernard’s “first child”, a revolutiona-ry mouthpiece, the marriage of a newfacing with a deeper inside that gavea matt, rounder sound resolution. Anacoustic revolution which delightedyoung musicians looking for newsonorities. And the evolution of thisprototype was to allow the declensionof a whole new scale of product. Thissubsequently led to the B40, with awider facet, playing less on the fine-ness of the extremity of the reed togive an even more matt sound.

Robert Van Doren (1904-1996), Premier Prix in clarinet from the Paris Conservatoire, created the 5RV mouthpiece in 1935, now a world-wide reference.


About mouthpieces

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< Extracts from the 1938 facsimile of the Vandoren Catalogue

After the successof the AL3 & AL4 Optimum

Alto mouthpieces, Vandoren now offers

a complete range for soprano,tenor and baritone saxophones.


A P A S S I O NF O R I N N O V A T I O N


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F or Vandoren, researchand development havealways been priorities.Here, we outline novel researchstrategy being implemented atthe factory in Bormes lesMimosas. A foretaste of themouthpieces and reeds oftomorrow?

Where can mouthpieces gofrom here?Our research objectives are twofold:continuing to create new modelsbased on our current know-how, inorder to more effectively meet musi-cians’ varied requirements, andinnovating as much as possible byexploring new shapes and materials,in order to propose alternatives interms of ergonomics, sonority andresistance to wear and tear. Itshould however be pointed out thatalthough many geometric variations

have already been experimented in agreat many ways (especially for theclarinet), as far as materials areconcerned, everything remains to bedone. Today we have at our disposalan incredibly wide choice of mate-rials: from modern alloys to traditionalebonite, through a whole range ofsynthetic or composite materials likewood-based composites. We made abreakthrough with the AT45 and wenow need to seek new avenues usingmaterials even more pleasant totouch, more resistant to wear andtear, and more ‘musical’, if such athing is possible.

Just how much influence doesmaterial have on sound for agiven geometry?Material is generally considered to beless influential than geometry. Theslightest variation in internal geome-try, in the baffle in particular, pro-

duces a totally different sound level.Reaching such different effects bysimply modifying the materialseems a long shot. Moreover, untilnow, every test has confirmed thetruth of this hypothesis, belying fre-quent misconceptions like: “metalsounds brilliant” or “cold”, “ebonitesounds warm”, “glass soundsclear”; etc. However, two characte-ristics of materials do play a role,though a minor one, in sonority. Thefirst is the material’s own capacityto vibrate and therefore participatein sound production, like the reed.This can be demonstrated in thebeak: using the same material, amore tapered beak produces a morebrilliant sonority (though sometimeswith less control). And the second isthe roughness of the inner surface,especially at the level of the baffle,which can have a slight influenceon timbre.

Could the same mouthpieceexist in different materials?That’s the whole point! Exactly repro-ducing the same mouthpiece in dif-ferent materials is very difficult to dofor two reasons. Firstly becausemoulded pieces and mouldingmethods can differ from one materialto another, and secondly because onpieces that are entirely machined,the hitherto indispensable manualfinishing touches are no guaranteefor a good reproducibility. It wasmoreover for reasons of reproducibi-lity that we adopted moulding inmanufacturing. To obtain seriousmargins of comparison, we areconcentrating on the perfection of anultra-precise machining centrewhich will allow us to obtain littleseries of strictly identical pieces fini-shed directly in different materials.We will then be in a position to testwhatever materials we need to andchoose the best.

What might the mouthpiece ofthe future be like?Perhaps adjustable, no doubt moreergonomic and easier to use. Thesimplification of the ligature couldbe the first step in this evolution.

How important is the role of theligature in the sound?In theory, a good ligature should playno predominant role in sound quali-ty or production. Its role is simply tohold the reed in place on the mouth-piece by means of the heel, leaving amaximum of freedom in the bevel,the part of the reed that vibratesand produces the sound. Musicianswho over-exploit tightening or liga-ture positioning to control theirplaying sound are exposing them-selves to accident: sound has to staythe business of the reed and themouthpiece.In practice, one can notice small dif-ferences in tone and sound emission

between two differently conceivedligatures. But the main differencesbetween two good ligatures will beon the grounds of ergonomics andeasiness to use.

Can you explain capturing thespirit of the fifties in a mouth-piece?This concept is popular in theStates. It harks back to a type of‘hot’ jazz sound that saxophonistsused to make, in a period, very richmusically, when a search for indivi-dual personality counted as much inthe sonority as in the phrasing. Inthe sixties, widespread use of ampli-fication and electro-acoustic effectsmade phrasing progressively moreimportant and sonority tended tobecome more uniform. The spirit ofthe fifties is about a need to comeback to a more natural, acoustic(and therefore more personal) soundproduction, favouring the richness


Musical research

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Bernard Van Doren. Soon after joining the firm in 1967,he created the famous B45.Totally committed and conscientious, he has modernised manufacturing and developed the whole range ofclassical music and jazz products, making them known in over 100 countries.

Extracts from the 1970 general catalogue.

The metal tenormouthpiece V16,forged in thelegendary “BellMetal” alloy,gold-plated.


and flexibility of timbre so characte-ristic of the saxophone. We will belaunching two new ‘fifties legend’ebonite mouthpieces in 2005-2006,one for soprano sax and one for tenorsax, with particularly ‘hot’ and mal-leable timbres.

Could this be some passingcraze?It's a matter of opinion but the trendseems to be catching on. Saxophonesound is still one of the rare instru-mental timbres to have not yet beensatisfactorily synthesised, preciselybecause of the richness and varietyof its natural sonority. In the face ofsynthesisers and other samplers,the saxophone asserts its unques-tionable originality.

Where does research standwith regard to new materialsfor reeds?We have long been trying to findmaterials for reeds as good as cane,but more durable and, if possible,offering other alternatives in termsof sound. But until now, none of the

tests carried out by dif-ferent reed

manufacturers have led to any deci-sive result. The reason is simple:cane has exceptional mechanical andhydrophilic characteristics, due to itsvery particular structure, extremelycomplex to reproduce synthetically.Plus, the morphological ensemble ofthe reed, the mouthpiece and the ins-trument has developed for centurieson the basis of these characteristics,to the exclusion of any others. Thereed’s vibration conditions the wholechain of sound production, and theslightest imperfection in the reedproduces effects that neither themouthpiece nor the instrument cancompensate for. Either we replacecane with a material whose physicalproperties are really close, or wedevelop all or part of the sound pro-duction chain (the mouthpiece inparticular) to allow the use of asomewhat different material. Ineither case, the research is long andfastidious.

Will we ever manage to equalor surpass cane?A priori, it’s not impossible. In anycase, exploring the matter interests us.

Can you tell me about thebenefits of the new “Flow

Pack” packaging?For several years now,

all our manufacturingworkshops have beenmaintained in super-vised hygrometricconditions. This fan-

tastic advance, com-bined with refined

grading techniques, allo-wed us to optimise selec-

tion by strength and generally stabi-lise product quality. But we realisedthat all these precautions were oftenin vain, if transportation conditionsor the storage facilities of shops andclients were not also ideal.Traditionally, packaging was notdesigned to stand up to unusual cli-matic conditions for long periods oftime, and reeds were sometimessignificantly affected. So we cameup with a revolutionary packagingidea to maintain reeds, as perfectlyand for as long as possible, in thecondition in which they left the fac-tory: the “factory fresh” concept.And for optimal results, we decidedon an individually wrapped presen-tation. Now, each reed reaches itsfinal client in a state of remarkablefreshness.

What parameters other thanstrengths can be measured?Most musicians use three basic cri-teria in describing their reeds:strength, timbre and durability. Wealready know how to characterisestrength in a precise, reproducibleway. Durability depends a lot on thecane itself. Unfortunately, althoughrather destructive in the process, theonly valid way to test this is by simu-lating wear and tear mechanically.But, we have great hopes of beingable very soon to characterise cer-tain aspects of sonority. Work hasjust begun, so we cannot discussthis. Let’s just say that it calls forresearch on a major scale in advan-ced regions of physics and geometry,and may well be the cornerstone ofall current research on reeds andmouthpieces alike…


T.A.N. (Numerical Reed Tester) at your service 56 rue Lepic,

in New-York, Chicago and Tokyo.


T H E F A M I L Y S P I R I T

From the cane to the tree

Being compared to a tree may seem unusual for a firm like Vandoren, now centennial and exporting throughout the world. But perhaps this rather unexpected image really does reflect the true nature of thiscompany: a small family industry that has prospered from season to season and been reinforced by beingas firmly rooted in its original soil as in its tradition and technical know-how.

And it really is a tree…genealogically speaking. For Vandoren, a hundred years after its creation, is still a familybusiness. Eugène’s passion espoused the talent and artistic qualities of Robert, and both of them later incorporatedBernard’s technical expertise and his thirst for modernising. What’s more, by calling, for the manufacturing of its pro-ducts, on numerous different sectors (agriculture, metallurgy…), seldom the case in our currently overspecialisedworld, Vandoren grew like a tree with multiple ramifications.

But Vandoren is also a tree with firmly implanted roots. For though the firm exports over 90% of its production, itsmanufacturing is still authentically French, its factory still in Bormes les Mimosas in the Var. And this is more thaneconomic “patriotism”, for the firm is still very attached to the spirit of its own tradition, allying quality products to aprestigious specialist label that has long proven its expertise and professionalism. The satisfaction of top musiciansis a priceless prestige never to be jeopardised by some infelicitous relocation or excessive industrial expansion. Yet,modernity is one of Vandoren’s chief objectives, notably in terms of research and technical innovation (research for aconstant hygrometry, research on new materials…)

A century later, Vandoren resembles a beautifully vibrant plant whose deep roots and promising buds are wateredby musicians…

Anne-Sophie Van Doren

The Vandoren team in Bormes

The Vandoren team in Paris


U P T H E R U E L E P I C


Vandoren, 56 rue Lepic…

U P T H E R U E L E P I C

Voyage to the four winds

Ahundred years ago,Parisians were walkingup the rue Lepic, arm inarm, to go sing and dance in the guin-

guettes (open-air cafés) and cabarets of theButte, draped in greenery and resounding withthe latest songs. Many painters were inspiredby the streets and cabarets of Montmartre:Toulouse-Lautrec, Utrillo. Vincent Van Goghand his brother Théo lived at 54 rue Lepic.And others lived and worked in the area,especially the illustrious tenants of thefamous “Bateau-Lavoir” which around 1860was installed in a former guinguette called“Poirier-sans-Pareil”: Picasso, Modigliani,Renoir… Montmartre also had its moreserious moments. The famous chorus of the“Rue Saint Vincent” used to bring tears to theeyes of French working girls. “Le Temps desCerises” also had a sad refrain, that popularsong dedicated by Jean-Baptiste Clément to ayoung girl whose courage he admired when

she brought cherries to the defenders of abarricade during the Commune. Even thewindmills of Montmartre, when winds wouldset their vanes groaning, would play strangemusic…on strange wind instruments: theMoulin de la Galette, the Moulin Rouge, butalso the Moulin des Près, the Moulin Vieux, theMoulin neuf, la Turlure, la Lancette, le Blute-Fin, le Radet to cite only the most famous.These numerous mills planted all over theButte Montmartre were very popular withyoung Parisians on Saturday nights: you coulddine, drink and dance there until the earlyhours of the morning.Nowadays no-one really knows who Lepic was:a painter, a writer, a musician? A proprietorneighbour of ours bears the same name, butwe know very little about him either. Thestreet was originally called the rue del’Empereur after Napoleon ordered it to beconstructed in order to reach the Chappe tele-graph that had just been installed at the top

of the Butte. At the Restoration, the streetwas rapidly re-christened and called after thefirst person they could think of. The Rue Lepic,where fiendish little children - once called“les petits Poulbots”- come flying down steepstairs with uneven steps. With an old-fashio-ned villa buried in shrubs that seems to defythe passing of time. And on the square, thepainters, tirelessly sketching the dome ofSacré-Cœur. In the distance, the ritornello of ahurdy-gurdy or the bold accents of a jazzorchestra. Nowadays, the gaunt windmillsails no longer turn, the voice of Dalida hasdisappeared, and the spirit of Marcel Aimé isfrozen to attention on a wall, but Montmartre,for the joy of the entire world, is still laughingheartily. The Vandoren firm moved to 56, rueLepic in 1935. Since then the label has tra-velled the world over but believe me, its soulis up rue Lepic.

Vandoren’s birthday celebratedthroughout the world

56, rue Lepicgets a face-lift

January: Los AngelesFrom the 20th to the 23rd of January,at NAMM, the largest music fair in

the world, a reception organised withthe help of our distributor DANSR, allowed us to invite American and

international distributors for a glass ofDomaine de l’Anglade, the Vandoren wine…

June: Le Lavandou, FranceOn June 9th, Bernard Van Doren gave a reception for distributors, musicians andfriends in the heart of his cane fields. A surprise musical treat (variations on“Happy Birthday”) by a state-of-the-art clarinet sextet was a great honour: Karl Leister (Germany), Martin Tow(Argentina), Guy Deplus and Paul Meyer(France), and Vandoren artistic advisorsJean-Louis René and Laurent Sultan.

July: TokyoFrom the 20th to the 24th of July, the I.C.A.congress (International Clarinet Association)took place for the first time in Asia. 1000congress members, 130 artists, numerousorchestras and ensembles. Our distributorNonaka organised a reception to which allthe clarinettists present were invited. There too, a fabulous musical tribute, jazzvariations on “Happy Birthday”, was playedby Eddie Daniels and Larry Combs.

September: South AmericaArgentina: In Buenos Aires, Vandoren invited orchestra and band soloists (saxophone and clarinet) to a traditional dinner.Brazil: At the Sao Paolo music fair, our distributor IZZO celebrated the centennial with the participation of the clarinet ensemble “Madeira de Vento”.

News from the United StatesTo celebrate the Vandoren Centennial, our distributor organised “Masterclasses &Clinics” throughout the year. In collaboration with the Carl Fischer editing house, he willsoon be releasing the “Vandoren Clarinet Etude and Exercise Book: the secrets of 10 master clarinettists”, associating E. Daniels, P. D'Rivera, M. Estrin, G. Foster, G. KroftBarnetson, G. Raden, T. Reilly, H. Skoler, D. Weber, J.B. Yeh (soon available at Vandoren’ssheet music Store, rue Lepic).

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Centennial Events

Our building has just been completelyrenovated this year, allowing musiciansto be received in optimum conditions.

We still have the test studios for sampling mouthpieces and accessories,along with our TAN (Numerical Reed

Tester) which, for a few years already, has been letting instrumentalists obtain thestrength they desire with unequalled precision.Our store of sheet music (and CDs) for clarinetand saxophone, created in 1993, offers a specialised service adapted to the needs of professional and amateur musicians. On the ground floor, entirely restored in the“Art Deco” style of the building, we also have the Salle Robert Van Doren, a miniconcert chamber available for master-classes.

Vandoren’s web site has been completely redone. The sheet music section is far more comprehensive and

the site equipped with totally securedirect payment facilities and a multi-criteriasearch machine for surfing the immense

Vandoren data-base (composers, arrangers,titles, categories, excerpts, etc.). Over 15,000titles for your visual and listening pleasure!

The web site

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The latest onVandojams

Birthday cards…The complete articles are available on our site: www.vandoren.fr

The Paris Conservatoire class in ChinaIn March 2005, I took 13 saxophonists from my class at theCNSM to China for a concert tour and master-classes in Peking,Shanghai and Xian. All were enormously impressed, hard not tobe with such a country. There are nearly 20,000 amateur saxo-phonists in Shanghai alone! A source of mutual enrichment, thecontact was brief but intense and full of promise: the Frenchsaxophone school, thanks to Selmer and Vandoren, was able togive a demonstration of its savoir-faire to enthusiastic publics andcreate strong bonds with a culture totally different to our own.Vandoren, thank-you a hundred times.

Keen to enrich the repertoire of contemporary music, Vandoren hashad a policy of commissioning works

from composers since 1991. For saxophone: Stockhausen’s LinkerAugentanz and Taïra’s Pénombres VI .

For clarinet: Berio’s Alternatim, Bacri’sConcerto da camera and Sciarrino’s AltreSchegge di Canto. In this centennial year,Vandoren has already sponsored two exceptional premières. On February 3rd,Ivan Fedele’s Arco di vento was premièred

in Turin. This magnificent concerto for clarinet and orchestra (2002-2004) was performed by Alessandro Carbonare and the National Symphonic Orchestra of theRAI. And on May 7th, 2005 in Shanghai, theFrench-Chinese composer Qigang Chen gavea preview of Le songe d’une jeune femmefrançaise (“The dream of a young French

woman”), a concerto for soprano, clarinetand orchestra, with Paul Meyer. The definitive première of this work tookplace in Strasbourg on June 23rd, 2005, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, conducted by M. Tang. This exceptional concert was given in the context of the European OrchestrasForum, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg.Le songe d’une jeune femme française,based on poems by Christine Frémaux, is a story of male/female relationships, a “slice of life” where the clarinet is alternately a spiritual and an intellectualdouble of the soprano. The combination of soprano and clarinet with an orchestra is quite rare. The public, orchestral artisticdirectors from all over Europe, gave the worka most enthusiastic reception.

The centennial premières

Jean-Noël CROCQ in PeruTouched by the humanitarian, cultural project of Aurélie and RudyValdivia, teachers in Rosheim in Alsace, to assist Peruvian clarinet-tists, I helped raise funds and collect material for their association inQuipou: apart from their concerts in Alsace and the mobilising of theparents of students, teachers and friends, I obtained sponsorshipfrom Vandoren, Buffet Crampon, the Cyrille Mercadier workshop andRobert Martin. Stéphane Hascoet, Cyrille Mercadier and I thenwent to Peru where we played concerts toenthusiastic and verydiverse audiences inLima, Arequipa andCuzco (at an altitudeof 3400 metres!). Wealso gave master-classes and workshops,where we were able toexplain questions ofmanufacturing, repai-ring and repertoire toinquisitive young musi-cians. But the need is verygreat! In addressing mybest wishes for the centennial of this great firm which has helped somany musicians in the past, may I hope that in the hundred years tocome, young clarinettists the world over will be able to accessVandoren reeds and mouthpieces without difficulty!

A pedagogical DVD collection, master-classes filmed at Vandoren, will be released at the end of 2005.

DVD 1: Guy Deplus, Emeritus Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, co-founder ofthe Domaine Musical and former clarinet

solo at the Paris Opera, giving a master-class inDecember, 2002. DVD 2: Karl Leister, former clarinet solo of the Berlin Philharmonic, giving a master-class in 2004.

“Vandojams”, a popular Parisian night-life event in Montmartre since 2003-2004, first at the club “Autour de

midi” and then at the Sunset-Sunsidesince September, 2004, became larger inscale this season. On October 1st,

Vandoren, in association with the “NuitBlanche” Festival, presented the FrancisBourrec Quartet from 6 p.m. till dawn. A jam session that highlighted the greattrends and standards of jazz history fromswing jazz to hard-bop…to think that jazz isover a hundred years old! And the “jazz” sessions of Vandoren’s centennial celebrationswill finish in style on December 13th with thevisit of young talent from all over Europe for an evening at The Duke’s Lounge Studio,in Paris’ 8th arrondissement. This year,

“Vandojams” have also begun to catch on out-side Paris. In Bordeaux on May 24th, they werein Canada (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) inJune, and November 14th in New York…

Master-classes on DVD

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Philippe PORTEJOIE in ColombiaWhat an amazing opportunity to be able to organise the 1st NationalSaxophone Competition in Bogota, thanks to the sponsorship of

Vandoren, Selmer, Feeling Musique and localFrench institutions. The

French Embassy gave an“Egide” study bursary tothe winner of the soloistsection, Juan FernandoGiraldo, the equivalent ofa return ticket Bogota-Paris and a month’s studyin France (in February,2006) under my responsibi-lity. This Competition seemsto have been an immensesuccess. More than 60contestants came from throu-

ghout the country. There were three levels: Juvenil, Superior andSolista. Performances were generally of a very high standard, despitethe student’s lack of good instruments and material. The prize-givingand final concert took place at the Teatro Cristobal Colon in the pre-sence of His Excellency, the French Ambassador to Colombia. There wereover 1000 spectators for this unforgettable evening, the first impor-tant event of this kind, and Colombians thank Vandoren 100 times!I hope to be able to maintain artistic links with this fabulous countryuntil 2105…


100 v - vandoren paris · clarinet), as far as materials are concerned, everything remains to be...

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