In Tucson’s classical music community, lives intersect over music stands, with musicians sitting side-by-side playing Bach and Beethoven one night, Broadway show tunes the next.
That’s how it was for clarinetists László Veres and John Snavely. As younger men, they were colleagues in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Veres as principal and Snavely a newbie, hired fresh out of college to play bass clarinet.
They played together for 13 years until Veres retired and turned his full-time attention to conducting Arizona Symphonic Winds, which he formed in 1986, and the venerable Tucson Pops Orchestra, which had been playing spring and fall concert series at Reid Park since 1955.
Snavely had been with the Pops a couple years by the time Veres took over as music director, and for the next 30 years, the pair continued the relationship they started at the TSO.
Snavely left the Pops a couple years before Veres retired in 2022 after 32 years.
These days, Veres focuses on his Arizona Symphonic Winds ensemble. It is on that stage that Veres and Snavely, on Saturday, March 16, will reunite for the ensemble’s spring concert at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive.
“I’m teaming up with my dear old friend to make music together once again, me as conductor and John as clarinetist,” Veres said.
Snavely will solo on John Denman’s “Crossover” Concerto for Clarinet, a work the TSO clarinetist composed just months before his death from cancer in 2001. Denman, who had taken the principal seat on the TSO when Veres retired, dedicated the work to clarinet great Buddy DeFranco.
Veres was at the podium when Tucson Pops performed the world premiere with Denman, a generational clarinet virtuoso whose career had garnered international acclaim as a soloist.
Denman died a couple of months later, Veres said.
Snavely is one of only three clarinetists to perform the work; the others were Denman and DeFranco.
Saturday’s concert, which begins at 2 p.m., also includes D. Shaffer’s concert band work “Upon These Wings;” Tucson composer Bob Atwell’s “Arizona Bridges” suite; A. Márquez’s rhythmic romp “Danzon No. 2;” Schubert’s “Serenade;” Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien;” and big band favorites.
Admission is free, but donations are accepted.
Michael T Anderson, sound technician, gives longtime Tucson Pops Orchestra Maestro László Veres a gift during Veres final performance with the Tucson Pops Orchestra on June 12, 2022. Veres retired from Tucson Pops Orchestra, which he led for the past 32 years. Video by Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star.
