ARRANGEMENTS

by category, composers and instrumentation

Clarice Assad served as the New Century Chamber Orchestra's primary arranger from 2007-2017, orchestrating hefty works including Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Richard Strauss' Dance of the Seven Veils and the suite An American in Paris, by G. Gershwin. Assad also arranged many works for the classical guitar and voice; piano and other smaller ensembles.


4 Romanian Dances
String Orchestra + Percussion


Dance of the Seven Veils
*from the Opera Salome
String Orchestra + Percussion


Pictures At An Exhibition
String Orchestra + Percussion


Meditation
*from the Opera Thais
String Orchestra + Solo Violin + Percussion



Nightclub 1960
For Guitar, Cello & Violin (c. 4 mins)

Three Piazzolla Etudes For Solo Flute
For Flute & Guitar

TANGO SUITE
For Piano 4 hands

ENIO MORRICONE
Love Theme From Cinema Paradiso (2011)
For Guitar, Cello & Violin (c. 2 mins)

THE BOSTON BEGUINE
Music and Lyrics by SHELDON M. HARNICK

BRING HIM HOME
Music by CLAUDE-MICHEL SHÖNBERG
Lyrics by HERBERT KRETZMER and ALAIN BOUBLIL

I HAD MYSELF A TRUE LOVE
Music by HAROLD ARLEN
Lyrics by JOHNNY MERCER

THE BOY FROM…
Music by MARY RODGERS
Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM

THE WAY WE WERE
Music by MARVIN HAMLISCH
Lyrics by ALAN & MARILYN BERGMAN

THIS MOMENT
Music and Lyrics by JOHN BUCCHINO

WHAT DOES HE WANT OF ME
Music by MITCH LEIGH
Lyrics by JOE DARION

HABANERA (L'amour est un oiseau rebelle)
Composer: Georges Bizet
French Libretto Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy

LOS PÁJAROS PERDIDOS
Composer: ASTOR PIAZZOLLA

YO SOY MARIA
From the opera Maria de Buenos Aires
For Classical Guitar & Voice

L'IMMENSITÀ
Composer: JOHNNY DORELLI
In the end, the “Kiev Gate” — perhaps the most challenging section to follow in Ravel’s footsteps — came out the best. The full orchestra cuts out suddenly at the end of “Baba Yaga’s Hut,” leaving Mussorgsky’s solo piano to begin this movement. (Take that, Ravel!) Then comes the quiet part for string quartet; by the end, the full orchestra is accompanied sequentially by bells, tam-tam, and bass drum.
San Francisco Classical Voice
Assad creates a wealth of textural variety from her limited orchestral resources, in part by drawing on various percussion instruments and having the pianist pluck or strum the instrument's strings. And with some judicious touching up here and there - particularly in the "Gnomus" movement, which gets some new and extra-spooky harmonies to go with its creepy glissandos - Assad puts her own stamp on the piece.
San Francisco Chronicle
Assad had shown herself, during previous service as NCCO’s composer in residence, to be an arranger and orchestrator of great imagination, and she proved it again here. This piece was great fun, more fun than it’s probably licit to have on the anniversary of 9/11. Passages for the full ensemble — fewer of those than you might think — alternated with dips into chamber music: violin and piano, or cello (Robin Bonnell) and piano, or the slow middle section of “The Great Gate of Kiev” magically set for string quartet... In the end, the “Kiev Gate” — perhaps the most challenging section to follow in Ravel’s footsteps — came out the best. The full orchestra cuts out suddenly at the end of “Baba Yaga’s Hut,” leaving Mussorgsky’s solo piano to begin this movement. (Take that, Ravel!) Then comes the quiet part for string quartet; by the end, the full orchestra is accompanied sequentially by bells, tam-tam, and bass drum.
San Francisco Classical Voice
Assad's contribution was, without a doubt, a unique one, very much in the spirit of the case I made on Friday that we should celebrate opportunities for diversity in our listening experiences. Her approach exhibited as much understanding of the original piano solo as did any of the examples that Fogelsong had presented; and many of her "coloration" decisions provided opportunities to think about sounds we thought were familiar in a new light. Whether or not this will lead to a "new tradition" in the performance of Mussorgsky's suite may be open to question; but there is no doubt that the opportunity to listen to Mussorgsky through Assad's ears was a stimulating one.
SF Classical Music Examiner - Stephen Smoliar
The Schubert was arranged by Clarice Assad, NCCO’s resident composer-arranger and the wizard behind some of NCCO’s previous clever stunts. (I remember with particular fondness a strings-and-percussion orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.) Setting Schubert’s repeating figures and pregnant chords for strings produced effects alternately reminiscent of lush Tchaikovsky romanticism, cool Scandinavian modernism, and Philip Glass minimalism.
San Francisco Classical Voice
An equally appealing approach to the use of resources was Clarice Assad’s arrangement of the opening Aria movement of the fifth Bachianas Brasileiras suite by Heitor Villa-Lobos. This was originally scored for eight cellos and soprano. However, Assad engaged a variety of innovative techniques to map the relationship between soloist and ensemble across the entire NCCO ensemble. This will probably be the most familiar part of the program at all of the tour stops, but listening to it refracted through Assad’s arrangement should make for new thoughts about this characteristically Brazilian take on the style of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Examiner
buoyant and eloquent version of the intermezzo from Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana"
SFGate - Joshua Kosman
Clarice Assad did an admirable job of translating Tchaikovsky’s rich instrumentation for this episode into strings-only resources.
The Examiner
Assad’s arrangement deftly captured the best of Elgar’s lush qualities that we easily associate with the resources of a large orchestra. It was the perfect demonstration of just how great an asset NCCO is to musical life in San Francisco.
San Francisco Classical Examiner
Consisting of just eight measures – some basic chords backing its eminently whistleable tune – “Mack the Knife” is a kind of blank slate that gets written over and layered into a ten-minute fantasy in the arrangement by Clarice Assad, a frequent collaborator with NCCO. Here and on her other arrangements for “Atlantic Crossing,” Assad hints at the ongoing role played by cross-connections among musical innovators in our own time. Salerno-Sonnenberg calls Assad “probably the greatest arranger alive today. She’s the only one I can think of who could write these kinds of arrangements. Older composers would not have had the experiences available to her generation, and her background growing up in Brazil has given her a vast scope of knowledge of musical styles; all this variety of music lives inside of her.
STANDFORD LIVE