Duo Lamell-Matthys

American clarinetist Josef Lamell and Belgian pianist Nathalie Matthys met at Indiana University’s renowned Jacobs School of Music, USA, in 2019. Their mutual love for good music, good food, and good company created a solid foundation for their relationship, and they have been making music together ever since. With Nathalie’s passion for cross-over music and Josef’s knack for arranging, they create refreshing programs aiming to expand the mainstream clarinet-piano repertoire and create diverse, memorable events for their audiences. They gave their debut recital at the Musicorum Festival in Brussels in 2021 and have since performed together in home concerts, recitals, and recordings in the United States, Belgium, and Austria. They regularly produce music videos on YouTube and are gradually settling into their new home in Vienna.
Any duo Lamell-Matthys program can be booked directly here.

Quick links

Click any link below to read more about the specific program:
Crossing the Atlantic
Songs Distance Taught Us
The Grass is Bluer on the Other Side
Schubert Meets Guastavino – music from Austria and Argentina
Sous le ciel de Paris

Each program is approximately one hour long
Duo Lamell-Matthys is happy to provide custom programs, tailored to any type of event


Crossing the Atlantic

P. Schickele – Three Elegies
G. Gershwin – Three Preludes
I. Stravinsky – Three Pieces
R.R. Bennett – Ballad in Memory of Shirley Horn
F. Poulenc – Clarinet Sonata
G. Gershwin/arr. J. Heifetz/arr. J. Lamell – It Ain’t Necessarily So

This 20th century program brings music from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean together.
Peter Schickele, the same man behind the humoristic music of P.D.Q. Bach, shows his unique mix of American minimalism and folk in his Three Elegies for clarinet and piano. He is followed by another American composer who characteristically explores the shores from jazz and classical music. George Gershwin’s Preludes, dedicated to good friend and musical advisor Bill Daly, are filled to the brim with syncopations, accents and the typical “blue notes”. Igor Stravinsky, who dedicates his Three Pieces for clarinet to his own friend Werner Reinhart, loves eclecticism and already shows his interest in jazz through these pieces, well before his move to the United States.
After studies in London and Paris, the English Richard Rodney Bennett writes mostly for film productions and stays active as jazz pianist. When the American jazz singer and pianist Shirley Horn dies in 2005, he writes a beautiful Ballad in her memory. The French composer Francis Poulenc writes his Clarinet Sonata, dedicated to Arthur Honegger, shortly before his death. The Sonata is premiered in Carnegie Hall by Benny Goodman, who commissioned the piece, and Leonard Bernstein. Finally, master violinist Jascha Heifetz, arranged a number of beautiful scores, including the Three Preludes and a selection of songs from Porgy and Bess, written by his friend George Gershwin. These transcriptions are now part of the standard violin repertoire and loved worldwide. For this program, Josef made an arrangement of Heifetz’s transcription.

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Songs Distance Taught Us

A. Dvořák – Songs My Mother Taught Me
G. Fauré – Après un rêve
L. Boulanger – Nocturne
P. Tchaikovsky – Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
N. Rimsky-Korsakov – Nimfa
S. Rachmaninoff – Zdes’ khorosho
S. Rachmaninoff – Etude-Tableau op. 39 no. 1
R. Schumann – Die Lotosblume
J. Brahms – O Tod, wie bitter bist du
R. Strauss – Beim Schlafengehen
F. Schubert/J. Lamell – Die Forelle
A. Ginastera – Triste
C. Guastavino – La Rosa y el Sauce
A. Piazzolla – Oblivion
G. Gershwin – It Ain’t Necessarily So
C. Ives – Songs My Mother Taught Me
F. Kreisler – Londonderry Air

“And if we’re doing our jobs properly, it should not matter that our audiences might not speak Italian or French or German or Spanish… they should know from the way that we sing… just about what is happening.” – Jessye Norman

Throughout history, songs have always been one of the purest and most sensitive forms of expression, regardless of language or tradition. Over the past year, American clarinetist Josef Lamell and Belgian pianist Nathalie Matthys have been exploring, amidst the desperate, strange, and troubling times, songs of comfort, familiarity, and peace from around the world. Even without their texts, these songs convey pure, universal, emotion through the simplicity of beautiful melody and sensitive harmony. At the same time, they challenge the musicians to coax as much color as possible from their instruments to do justice to each song, each poet, and each composer.

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The Grass is Bluer on the Other Side

A. Shaw – Concerto for Clarinet
I. Stravinsky/arr. J. Lamell-T. Hsieh – Suite Italienne (Pulcinella)
G. Gershwin – Prelude no. 2
G. Gershwin/arr. J. Heifetz/arr. J. Lamell – It Ain’t Necessarily So
R.R. Bennett – Ballad in Memory of Shirley Horn
A. Copland – Clarinet Concerto

This program is filled to the brim with composers exploring “other sides” of music. George Gershwin struggled his whole life to feel ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of the classical music world while Igor Stravinsky drew much of his inspiration from ragtime, jazz, and baroque styles. Artie Shaw constantly pulled classical elements into swing, while Benny Goodman commissioned many of the masterworks of today’s clarinet repertoire. In a sense, the crossing between genres lies at the heart of modern classical music (and the clarinet’s identity), and indeed has inspired some of the greatest creative minds of the last century. In fact, this program itself features some ‘borrowing’ across instrument lines with premieres of Josef’s original arrangements for clarinet of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne and Heifetz’s It Ain’t Necessarily So.

In the end, the grass is always greener on the other side, right?

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Schubert Meets Guastavino – music from Austria and Argentina

F. Schubert – Impromptu in Ab major, op. 142 no. 2
F. Schubert/arr. J. Lamell – Heidenröslein
C. Guastavino/arr. L. Rossi – La Rosa y el Sauce
C. Guastavino – Clarinet Sonata
C. Guastavino/arr. L. Rossi – Rosita Iglesias
F. Schubert/arr. J. Lamell – Arpeggione Sonata

In this program, two great song composers from different sides of the Atlantic come together. Carlos Guastavino has sometimes been called the ‘Schubert of the Pampas’ for the many songs he composed, and Franz Schubert was also perhaps most famous as a composer of songs. But each of them wrote many significant works in other genres. Here, we explore not only songs, but also impromptus, instrumental sonatas and transcriptions from both Guastavino and Schubert.At the same time, there is a theme of inheritance and hommage at play. Josef Lamell studied under Luis Rossi, and Rossi himself studied at the University in Buenos Aires when Carlos Guastavino was professor of composition there. Through this connection, Rossi and Guastavino became friends, and Guastavino eventually composed his clarinet sonata for Rossi. Lamell, in turn, was introduced to Guastavino’s wonderful music as a student under Rossi, where he studied this clarinet sonata and began exploring the idea of arranging more of Guastavino’s music for clarinet, as Rossi has already done with Rosita Iglesias and La Rosa y el Sauce.

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Sous le ciel de Paris

J. Françaix – Tema con Variazioni
Ph. Gaubert – Fantaisie
C. Saint-Saëns – Sonata
M. Ravel – Sonatine
O. Messiaen/arr. J. Lamell – Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus, from Quatuor pour la fin du temps
C. Debussy – Première Rhapsodie

An intimate soirée, celebrating music of the twentieth-century French masters and inviting you to experience Paris in all its intensity, vibrancy, elegance, and spirituality through the eyes (and ears) of Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel, Françaix, Gaubert, and Messiaen. This program pairs beloved classics with lesser-known gems and new arrangements, and showcases surpassingly colorful music offering not just beauty, but also humor, vivid imagery, and moments of deep contemplation.

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