In Midwestern composer Rick Sowash’s ‘Voyageurs,’ the piano is prominent

The term “voyageurs” refers to the early explorers who befriended Native American and First Nation peoples, opening up trade routes in the New World, including in Wisconsin.

It’s also the name of a new album recently released by American composer Rick Sowash, featuring three trios for clarinet, cello and piano.

Sowash has written several clarinet trios over the years, and in the case of this collection, each one has a name and a theme.

The “Trio no. 12 for Clarinet, Cello and Piano” is the album’s namesake. Its four movements are evocatively titled, “Geese in Flight,” “Night Song of the Voyageurs,” “Starshadows on the Snow” and “A Majestic Land.”

“The piano is the voyageur. I gave it a much more prominent role than it has in the preceding eleven trios,” Sowash wrote in the album’s liner notes.

The “Trio no. 11” is subtitled “We Sang, We Danced.” Sowash writes that it recalls “a long-ago time when it was a given that serious music would be tonal, melodic and accessible.”

Sowash was born in Ohio in 1950 and started down the road of music academia, then decided that it wasn’t a path he was interested in pursuing. He has composed over 400 works, mostly for chamber and choral ensembles­ — all while making a living elsewhere.

And instead of trying to eke out every cent from his intellectual property, Sowash is generous with the music, making free PDFs of his scores available to anyone who wants them, along with mp3s of the music.

The final clarinet trio on the album is “Passacaglia & Fugue.” Composed in 2004, the music grew out of Sowash’s response to “unhappy current events.” He writes that the “Passacaglia” explores the relationship between sorrow and beauty, and that the “Fugue” expresses the energy of outrage.

The three Sowash clarinet trios are performed with skill and sensitivity by The Upland Trio (Christopher Bade, clarinet; Josh Aerie, cello; and Greg Kostraba, piano.)