Ten years in the making, Caerulean presents the stunning results of commissions and collaborations between renowned clarinettist Carl Rosman and some of the most cutting-edge composers of our times, with eleven world

premiere recordings on one disc, including composers Georges Aperghis, Richard Barrett, Aaron Cassidy, Rebecca Saunders, Chikako Morishita and Mauricio Kagel.

“There are collaborations and collaborations. Sometimes performer and composer work closely on every detail of a piece, developing its tonal palette together, trying out preliminary versions over months or years, the composer remaining involved in the tiniest parameters of timing, tone production or rubato, constantly adjusting details up to the premiere and beyond (recording sessions certainly not excluded). But sometimes the fact that a trusted performer on a well-known instrument wants a solo piece is sufficient stimulus on its own: a piece can also simply arrive and go out into the world without any need for working sessions. Neither extreme of the spectrum, nor indeed any point along it, has a monopoly in the creation of musically fulfilling works.” CR

Carl Rosman lives in Köln and is a permanent member of Ensemble Musikfabrik and ELISION Ensemble. He has also appeared with groups including ensemble ascolta (Stuttgart), Ensemble Phoenix (Basel), Ensemble Modern/Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Ensemble SurPlus (Freiburg), Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin), Theater Freiburg, and the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. Works composed for him include Chris Dench’s ruins within for solo clarinet in A, Liza Lim’s INGUZ (fertility) for clarinet in A and cello, Richard Barrett’s interference (for contrabass clarinettist also vocalising over a five-octave range) and Flechtwerk (for clarinet and piano, with Mark Knoop), and Georges Aperghis’s Damespiel for solo bass clarinet. Recent releases include Georges Aperghis’s Babil with Ensemble musikFabrik (on WERGO), Brian Ferneyhough’s La Chute d’Icare with ELISION (on Kairos) and solo works by Aaron Cassidy (on NEOS).