Clarinet and bass clarinet, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Co-owner, Rodriguez Musical Services.
Alcides grew up in Venezuela and came up through El Sistema, the national youth orchestra program. There was no repair shop nearby. When a pad failed or a bumper wore through, he fashioned the replacement himself out of everyday materials and improvised springs when he had to. He could not afford to send his clarinets out to be overhauled, so he learned to do the work himself and kept getting better at it.
He arrived in the United States in 1999 with a clarinet, a suitcase, and a little English. He earned a Bachelor of Music from Baylor University and a Master of Music from Northwestern University. A chair in the Atlanta Symphony followed.
Nearly thirty years later he is still doing what he did as a boy in Venezuela: taking clarinets apart and making them play better.
Alcides joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and performs on the bass clarinet. He is also a performing artist and clinician for Buffet Crampon and Vandoren.
He has appeared as a concerto soloist and as a chamber musician, and has performed at festivals including the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and the Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival in Brazil. In 1997 he gave the first performance in Venezuela of Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto.
Alcides Rodriguez, visiting Vandoren in New York City and choosing the right setup for his 3 clarinets.
Factory assembly gets a clarinet to roughly 80% of what it is capable of. The remaining 20%, meaning evenness of response, smoothness of the key action, richness of tone across every register, requires individual attention that mass production cannot provide.
Most of that gap can be closed by a good technician. The last part of it cannot.
Before a Buffet reaches our workshop, a team of symphony clarinetists play tests a large number of factory instruments and selects only the ones with a rich resonant tone, even response, and a sweet core. Each of those instruments then receives a full nine-hour optimization.
Every pad and bumper comes off until only wood and metal are left. Custom leather and premium synthetics go on in their place. Spring tensions are recalibrated and the key work is regulated until the action is silent across the full range of the instrument.
He evaluates response, evenness, and the physical feel of the keywork from the bottom of the range to the top. The adjustments he makes at that stage are the ones only a player at his level can feel and correct.
He calls it the last 10%. He learned what it was as a young player, when his own clarinets came back from being overhauled and still were not ready to perform on, and he had to finish the work himself before he could take them on stage. Every instrument that leaves our shop gets the version of that work he would want done to his own.
The same standard applies to the RMS Artist Overhaul. Alcides play tests every instrument that comes through it, whatever the brand and whoever owns it.
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