VIDEO
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GOLDENROD SONATA by Sato Matsui
For flute and piano
ONLY THE WORDS THEMSELVES MEAN WHAT THEY SAY by Kate Soper
For flute (concert, piccolo, bass) and voice
DRAGONFLY by Doina Rotaru
For piccolo solo
This video was recorded by Dave Alcorn - Microtone Media
Rotaru had two basic ideas as a frame for this work: the piece needed to have a connection with nature, as well as avoid the high register of the instrument. These components give Dragon-Fly a unique sonority. To create a complex sonorous universe, Rotaru uses different extended flute techniques, separately and in combination. Unusual usage of the low and middle range of the instrument shows the composer’s impeccable sense for picturesque writing, perfectly sound-painting this delicate insect. By listening to this piece, one can create a short story about the day in the life of a dragonfly, from the fast trilling of the opening (suggesting the insect’s hectic flight and rapid approach), to the very last note played with bisbigliandi, creating a picture of the motionless insect with its wings barely moving on a summer breeze. The contrast between movement and rest is the main concept of this piece.
GREAT SAND DUNES by Jenni Brandon
For flute and marimba
WORLD PREMIERE @ LunART Festival
TOCCATA by J.S. Bach by Salvatore Sciarrino
For flute solo
My entry for the Trevor James Flutes alto flute competition. What does the flute mean to me? For me, the flute fills the world with color! This was super fun project, thank you Dave Alcorn
LE MERLE NOIR by Olivier Messiaen
For flute and piano
Messian composed Le merle noir (“the blackbird”) for the annual flute concours in 1952, and this short, single-movement work for flute and piano is the first of Messiaen’s compositions to imitate the song of a one specific bird species.
FANTASY by George Hüe
For flute and Orchestra
Iva Ugrčić's solo performance as the Winner of the Miami Summer Music Festival Concerto Competition 2015.
ELEVEN by Cecilia McDowall
For flute and piano
Eleven is a piece that has very personal meaning to me. It was written during troubling times in former Yugoslavia, where I was born and raised. McDowall states: “I became obsessed with what happens to a culture when it is dispersed due to war. ‘Eleven’ means ‘alive’ in Hungarian, and I dedicated it to all those in danger of losing their cultural identity, in the hope that they can keep their cultural ‘voice’ alive.”
McDowall uses ethnic religious music of Eastern Europe in a powerful form to depict the suffering of Kosovo in the late 20th Century. Techniques such as glissandi are used in the flute part to mimic the sounds of a woman’s cries caused by a deep sadness of losing loved ones.
IMPRESIONES DE LA PUNA by Alberto Ginastera
For flute and string quartet
FANMI IMEN by Valerie Coleman
For flute and piano
THEME AND VARIATIONS, OP. 80 by Amy Beach
For flute and string quartet
This video was recorded by Dave Alcorn - Microtone Media
Amy Beach was a groundbreaker who challenged expectations for women. In her day and beyond, the odds were stacked heavily against women composers. As Antonin Dvořák opined to a Boston reporter in 1892, “The ladies… have not the creative power.”
This beautiful piece, inspired by certain Indian Lullaby, has been on my bucket list for a long time and I finally performed it during the LunART Festival 2022 season!
JAPANESE GARDEN by Doina Rotaru
For bass flute/piccolo and pre-recorded sound
A word from the composer:
A Japanese Garden means a lot of rules which exist from centuries. Many archetyps are repeated here, in this synthesis between Natural beauty, “form without form “, and the Rationality, the perfect form. A Japanese Garden means also spiritual elevation; I put it in connection with the Flute, the old instrument of Prayer and Meditation. Around the Flute, on the “tape “ part, I’ve built an imaginary “garden “ of wind and percussion instruments sonorities: flutes, shakuhachi, sho, didgeridoo, Japanese “rins.”
DREAMS OF BIRDS by Jenni Brandon
For alto flute and piano
The Dreams of Birds explores the world of what birds might dream. Would they dream of running, of flying to the sun? Would they dream of being human?
IL PIANTO DEL GHIACCIO by Doina Rotaru
For flute quartet
A sneak peek of my upcoming album Cries and Whispers - Works for flute by Doina Rotaru! This is one of the best flute quartets I have heard in my life, and I feel so privileged that my recording will be the first one ever!
MÉMORIALE (... explosante-fixe ... originel) by Pierre Boulez
For flute solo and 8 instruments
Initially conceived in 1971 as a memorial for Igor Stravinsky, who died in April of that year, Boulez composed several different versions of the work between 1972 and 1993. The original line of music gravitated toward the pitch of E-flat (spelled out, per convention, as “Es” = the first letter of Stravinsky’s name). From the start Boulez planned a central role for flute, which would interact with live electronics and a chamber ensemble. However, the technological limitations of the early 1970s proved so frustrating that he put the initial version of …explosante-fixe… aside for the time being.
Autumn Fantasy by Minoru Miki
For flute and piano
Autumn Fantasy by Minoru Miki is composed in 1980 for shakuhachi and twenty string koto, it begins with a 5-minute prologue. This first section is a gentle dialogue between the two instruments, and the second section sets the two instruments in simultaneous contrast. Here, the shakuhachi unfolds a long sustained melody. Against this floating melody, the koto provides a rapid counterpoint, contrastive in temperament and rhythmic density. This recording is an arrangement for flute and piano!