If you’ve been a recipient of these Sunday morning emails for a while then you’ve heard the clarinet artistry of my good friend Christopher Bade. Along with two other good friends of mine -- cellist Josh Aerie and pianist Greg Kostraba -- Christopher recorded my CD / album titled “Voyageurs,” featuring three trios for clarinet, cello and piano: #11 “We Sang, We Danced,” #12 “Voyageurs: Homage to Canada” and #13 “Passacaglia and Fugue.”

Christopher Bade has been a Professor of Music at Taylor University since 2004. His teaching responsibilities include conducting the Taylor Symphony Orchestra and Taylor Wind Ensemble and teaching clarinet, saxophone, and music history. He earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois. Chris is also Music Director and Conductor of the Columbus (IN) Symphony Orchestra which is celebrating its 103rd season as Indiana’s oldest orchestra.

He is an enthusiastic fan of my clarinet music and has played any number of my clarinet works, including -- twice! -- my “Concerto for Clarinet & Orchestra.”

In the fall of 2022, I composed a “Christmas present” for Chris and on Christmas Day I sent it to him as a gift, unannounced and unexpected.

I titled the piece “Rondo Pastorale” and, though it was written for Chris, it is an homage to the English composer Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) who is much loved by clarinetists for his wonderful concerto and his “Five Bagatelles” which almost every clarinetist plays sooner or later.

I love and admire Finzi’s music. He is one of my heroes because he steadfastly resisted the pressure to write modernistic music, developing instead a music that was true to his roots as a lover of rural England. I took him a model when I, in turn, tried to write music that would be true to my own roots in rural Ohio. I like to joke that, as a composer, I have sometimes aspired to be the American answer to Finzi -- to wit, “Huckleberry Finzi.”

His music is characterized by folksong-like melodies with a bucolic character and delicate, almost Baroque-sounding counterpoint. I set out to emulate those qualities in the Christmas gift for Christopher, which I titled “Rondo Pastorale.”

Christopher premiered the piece a year or two later and last October he recorded it, again with pianist Greg Kostraba, on an album of my original music for clarinet & piano titled “Full Circle.” It will soon be available on the Kickshaw Records label which you can explore at kickshawrecords.com.

Today, in sharing Christopher and Greg’s recording of “Rondo Pastorale: Homage to Gerald Finzi,” I am giving you a sneak peep at the forthcoming CD. It will offer 24 tracks of my music and all of it beautifully played. When it is released in early August, I will announce it to all my friends and fans.

For now, to listen to my “Rondo Pastorale” performed by clarinetist Christopher Bade and pianist Greg Kostraba, click on the link above. There's also a link to a PDF of the score.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
July 12, 2026