Dr. William Schimmel’s “Have Mersey on Rio” for Clarinet and Accordion will be performed on June 6, 2025 by Charles Neidich, clarinet and Dr. Schimmel, accordion at:
The Ellington Room
Manhattan Plaza
New York at 7:PM

This free concert is sponsored by Composers Concordance and will be live streamed on the Composers Concordance Facebook Page. Composers Concordance is a concert series, ensemble and presenting organization for contemporary music with a 41-year history.

William Schimmel holds BM, MS and DMA degrees, with a doctorate from the Juilliard School. He performed with virtually every ensemble in New York, from the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, Jazz at Lincoln Center, many contemporary ensembles, and on Broadway as well as on numerous European tours. His Tango Project albums have reached #1 on the Billboard charts along with Stereo Review Album of the Year and Grammy nominations. He has performed in many movie soundtracks, and can be seen and heard in Scent of a Woman starring Al Pacino. His current album, The Theater of the Accordion features trumpeter Wynton Marsalas and has reached #2 on the Amazon charts.

Dr. Schimmel has performed with rock stars as diverse as Sting and Tom Waits who stated: “Bill Schimmel doesn’t play the Accordion, He IS the Accordion.” Dr. Schimmel resides in Manhattan with his wife, Micki Goodman, a dancer/choreographer and video artist. Together they have produced numerous videos that can be seen and heard on YouTube. Dr. Schimmel’s works are currently being archived at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

A native New Yorker of Russian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich had his first clarinet lessons with his father and his first piano lessons with his mother. Mr. Neidich’s early musical idols were Fritz Kreisler, pianist Artur Schnabel and other violinists and pianists, rather than clarinetists. However, the clarinet won out over time, and he pursued studies with the famed pedagogue Leon Russianoff. Although Mr. Neidich became quite active in music at an early age, he opted against attending a music conservatory in favor of academic studies at Yale University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Anthropology. In 1975 he became the first American to receive a Fulbright grant for study in the former Soviet Union, and he attended the Moscow Conservatory for three years where his teachers were Boris Dikov and Kirill Vinogradov.

Clarinetist and conductor Charles Neidich has gained worldwide recognition as one of the most mesmerizing virtuosos on his instrument. With a tone of hypnotic beauty and a dazzling technique, Mr. Neidich has received unanimous accolades from critics and fellow musicians both in the United States and abroad; but it is his musical intelligence in scores as diverse as Mozart and Elliott Carter that have earned for Mr. Neidich a unique place among clarinetists. In the words of The New Yorker, “He’s an artist of uncommon merit — a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an interpreter who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase.”

For further information: accordionbill@gmail.com