“No Man’s Clan (1996) was my first foray into composing a piece of music with absolutely no sections of improvisation – all parameters are given. I wrote this at a time in my life when up could have been down, yes meant no, and never was often always. I was performing different programmes in several different cities, on at least three sizes of clarinet, with a variety of ensembles and in solo settings. All the time I was thinking about the in-between states due to my mixed heritage, varying consciousnesses, entering/exiting the concert stage, love and lust. I was feeling as though I had fallen into all of the cracks there ever were…uncategorizable”. Taken from the liner notes written by Freedman in 1998 for her first feature album Huskless on which No Man’s Clan appears.

Written originally for 5 players doubling and tripling on the bass, b-flat and e-flat clarinets, Freedman anticipated that the music might be performed more often if she recorded 4 of the 5 parts, with the 5th part to be played live with tape playback in concert. To date, that version has been performed 43 times across North America and Europe. Tonight is the première of her new arrangement for this piece, for saxophone quartet and bass clarinet, and is dedicated to the Quasar Quartet.