EAST My great love and veneration of the music of Eastern Europe stems from my early childhood. A recording of Benone Damian left an early impression on my rhythmic eleven-year-old heart. The foundations were laid for my fascination with all forms of folk music from Eastern Europe. The "EAST" clarinet quintet was created between 2001 and 2003 as a composition commissioned for the chamber music festival at Kirkjubæjarklaustur in Iceland. Each of the six movements is dedicated to a personality of Eastern European musical culture. I have a formative musical connection to every one of these musical personalities. In each case, both the emotional connection and the characteristics of its musical origin served as a source of inspiration. Six personal, intimate pictures thus came into being; independent compositions shaped by their mentor and freed from the aspiration to in some way be folk music.