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Just a reminder that I’ll be presenting for the Victorian Flute Guild’s Professional Development Day on August 25th. I’ve attached a flyer and you can also visit victorianfluteguild.org for more details. The venue is St. Catherine’s School, Heyington Place, Toorak.

.PD_Day_Flyer

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  • I will be presenting a masterclass for the Geelong Music Teachers’ Association on Thursday August 10th at Geelong College. geelongmusicteachers.com.au is their website for further details. I’m looking forward to visiting Geelong again.

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The final set of program notes from Alicia McGorlick. Thanks Alicia!

Voice (1971)
Toru Takemitsu

Takemitsu is an internationally recognised composer who composed music with a distinct fusion of traditional Eastern styles, in this case Japanese style, and Western forms in his pieces.[1] His ‘avant-garde’ work ‘Voice’, dedicated to Aurèle Nicolet, revolves around the use of the voice, through humming, singing and speaking into the flute. Extended techniques from Bruno Bartolozzi construct the basis of the work. This includes Noh flute attacks (a breathy attack from a Noh kan flute used in the Japanese Noh Theatre), pitch bending, microtones, double tremolos, key clicks, multiphonics and whisper tones. The concept of ‘ma’ 間depicts a Japanese aspect of time and space and is used in this piece through the use of sound and silence coexisting with one another.[2] The poem spoken both off and on the flute is written by Shuzo Takiguchi from his “Handmade Proverbs”:

Qui va la? Qui que tu sois? Parle transparence!
Who goes there? Speak transparence! Whoever you are!

[1] Hwee Been Koh, East and West: The Aesthetics and Musical Time of Toru Takemitsu, Ph.D diss, Boston University, 1998, 1. (CHECK THEORY AND METHODS ASSIGNMENT IF YOU WISH TO REWORD A BIT)

[2] http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/jochenette/Takemitsu_essay_Chenette.pdf page 2

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Some more program notes from Alicia McGorlick.

 

Fantaisie (1913)
Georges Hue

The 1889 Paris Universal Exposition was a stage where groups from around the world displayed the best of their countries’ architecture, industry, culture and arts including music. It was here where the influence of Eastern music was first heard by many French composers such as Claude Debussy and quickly spread to other French flute composers such as Georges Hue.[1] Dedicated to Paul Taffanel, a flautist and professor at the Paris Conservatoire, Fantaisie displays Asian tones and the virtuosity of the modern Boehm flute. As a classic French Romantic piece, it includes long lyrical lines and impressive technical passages with playful chromatic melodies exchanged between the flute and piano.[2] The piece also requires a masterful use of extreme dynamics and tone, and as such, Hue’s Fantaisie was set as a competition piece for the end of the year exams at the Paris Conservatoire

[1] http://www.arthurchandler.com/paris-1889-exposition/

[2] https://www.gettysburg.edu/dotAsset/d013a2dd-1cce-442b-9723-7538f3cb846a.pdf page 5, check it’s your own wording