When Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s new Principal Clarinet Jorge Diez steps up to center stage in the January 11 “Mozart Glow” concert at Belhaven University Center for the Arts, he’ll share the spotlight with longtime MSO Clarinetist Lowell Hollinger.

The two are featured in Franz Krommer’s Concerto No. 2 for Two Clarinets in the candlelight concert that celebrates Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his fellow Classical-era composers. The evening also includes Domenico Cimarosa’s delightful Caio Maria Overture and Mozart’s powerhouse Symphony No. 40.

“It’s exciting to play a solo with the orchestra. I’m happy I will be sharing the stage with Lowell… this is a wonderful concerto,” Diez said. Originally from Colombia, Diez completed his undergrad in music at the famed El Sistema de Orquestas de Venezuela (National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela), then moved to the United States with his young family to continue his studies. He is now working on his doctorate in clarinet performance at the University of Alabama.

Diez was about 10 when given the opportunity to choose among different instruments and narrowed his selection to the clarinet or the flute. “I got more engaged with the clarinet,” he said. “When I heard recordings…, I had the feeling the clarinet was more flexible.… It’s a very popular instrument in Colombian music. If you listen to Colombian music, always you will find a clarinet.”

At 17, Diez balanced engineering studies with playing in a youth orchestra, and music ultimately won out. On a tour with the orchestra, “I realized that this is what I wanted to do for a living. Then, I got a scholarship to study in Venezuela and I said, ‘OK, this is my path.’” His younger brother is also a musician, a trumpet player living in Paris and playing with the National Orchestra Isle de France. “We are the only musicians in the family.”

For Hollinger, who has played with MSO since his college days at Jackson State University (with a brief respite to earn his clarinet performance master’s at Louisiana State University), the musical spark hit courtesy of a neighbor. Originally from Miami, his mom acted as band parent for his “godsister” next door, which yielded the happy bonus, “I got enamored with band,” Hollinger said. His first instrument was the bassoon. “The lady who was band director at the middle school was showing off the instruments and said, ‘Well, this one instrument, I never had anybody who wanted to play it.’ Me being that guy, I wanted to do it.” He also played alto sax.

By high school, expensive bassoon reeds, the bass clef (“I read treble clef better,” he said), and the concert ensemble literature got him looking elsewhere. “I was not going to sit there and play whole notes and half notes, listening to clarinets rip up and down the instrument — I wanted to play that!” A friend had an extra clarinet, so he took it home and the rest is history, he said. His switch to a visual and performing arts high school cemented the path. “I stuck with the clarinet and never looked back.

“We have the widest range of all the instruments in the woodwind family,” he said of its appeal.

Both Diez and Hollinger look forward to the cheerful repartee and expressive lines of Krommer’s concerto. “It’s a big piece that represents the classical period in music for the clarinet,” Diez said.

“It is a really amazing piece,” said Hollinger, particularly enjoying plenty of fast notes in the first and third movements, and the romantic feeling of the second. It’s clever, too, the way Krommer’s piece gives each instrument a little shine, then flips it around, he said. “You can’t ever tell who’s playing the top part and the bottom part.”

Diez said, “He was one of the first composers that wrote for the clarinet as a soloist in this kind of setting, so it’s exciting to play this kind of music…. another important thing is, we don’t have a lot of double clarinet concertos in our repertoire.”

Czech composer Krommer was a violinist and wrote many operas and symphonies, but his pieces for wind instruments have really endured, said MSO Conductor and Music Director Crafton Beck. “That’s the music of his that’s being played, and it’s all just wonderful.”

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Venue Reminder:
Belhaven University Center for the Arts — 835 Riverside Drive, Jackson, MS — is the location for MSO’s “Mozart Glow” concert at 7:30 p.m. on January 11, 2025. Seating is general admission. Tickets are $28 for adults and $5 for students, kindergarten through college (with valid student ID), available at msorchestra.com and at the venue box office at 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the concert.