Summer Flute Academy-AFV

Gabrieli for flutes!

Here's the link to another video from the Summer Flute Academy, with the most incredibly beautiful music by Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612). It is rare to find pre-baroque music on a flute program, but the loss is definitely ours!

This "Canzon" in 8 voices features two groups of 4 players, facing each other from opposing sides of the room in this performance. Had we had the luck to "beam ourselves" to St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, Italy, where Gabrieli was the chief composer, the design of the church with its opposing choir lofts would have amplified the antiphonal effect. Gabrieli was famous for using the spectacular acoustics of St. Mark's to the benefit of his compositions. These influenced early Baroque composers such as Schütz and indirectly Bach, bringing the Italian style into the German high-Baroque. More globalization!

Congratulations to the Academy students who performed—it was a joy to hear live, and a joy to hear again through the magic of YouTube!

Master Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, with lute

Master Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, with lute

Winning Composition Premier now on YouTube!

My magnificent Summer Flute Academy colleague Stephanie Wagner is back from holiday, and thus the recordings from the concerts at the Academy are going online! (She's the IT whiz amongst us). They are on the Academy site, FaceBook page or YouTube.

The first one I'd like to draw your attention to is the fabulous performance by André Cameira (flute) and Patrícia Pires (alto flute) of Ricardo Matosinho's work "Traveling". It is extremely well-written and fun to listen to—bravo to the performers and the composer, who received First Prize in the Academy's 3rd Composition Competition for Works for Flutes

As soon as the work is available—it will be published by Scherzo Editions before the end of the year—I'll let everyone know. Until then, enjoy listening, and to the composer: keep writing for flutes, please!

Composer Ricardo Matosinhos, Patrícia Pires and André Cameira. Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV

Composer Ricardo Matosinhos, Patrícia Pires and André Cameira. Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV

Low Flutes: Purcell Redux

For the Professors' Recital on the first day of the Summer Flute Academy, I got a chance to perform a contrabass flute duo with Stephanie Wagner, and Jonathan Ayerst on piano. This was a sort of second baptism of my new Eva Kingma Contrabass Flute, which is as fun to play as it is cool to look at! (At the 1st Summer Flute Academy I played 3 notes on Stephanie's Contra and it was love…what can I say?)

We played an adaptation I wrote for contrabass flute duo and piano of the famous aria "Dido's Lament" from Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas". Gloriously noble, sad music. I thank Stephanie for playing the harder part, and Jon for being the top-notch "backup band". Soon I hope we'll have all our Academy videos online—I'll let you know here as soon as they're up—but for now here's a photo! 

Two Kingma Contrabass Flutes at the 4th Summer Flute Academy

Two Kingma Contrabass Flutes at the 4th Summer Flute Academy

Luthier Tomás Miranda at the Summer Flute Academy

One of our hallowed traditions at the Summer Flute Academy is to bring the wonderful luthier Tomás Miranda up from Lisbon for a day, to show us a bit about the inner workings of our flutes! What to do and what NOT to do, in order to reduce mechanical problems, and when to send the flute in to him for professional treatment! 

As the official repairman for Powell Flutes here in Portugal, Tomás was able to visit the Powell factory and touch base with the masters of flute-building there—fotos of that visit on another blog entry! I think it was luthier-heaven for him, not counting the New England winter weather!

At the 4th Summer Flute Academy Tomás removed and replaced the mechanism of  a Yamaha for instructive purposes, and then sat at his table patiently "treating" students' flutes with small problems of leaks and wobbles and so forth. Tomás is a gem of a person, and has that amazing calmness of spirit necessary for this kind of work—he's our "artist behind the artists onstage"! Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV.

Tomás Miranda, at work at the 4th Summer Flute Academy. Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV

Tomás Miranda, at work at the 4th Summer Flute Academy. Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV

Em Foco - Teses! / In Focus - Theses!

As part of the Summer Flute Academy project, we look for interesting thesis projects that can be presented in a seminar to the students (and Professors!). This is our "Em Foco—Tese" project, and this year's winner was André Cameira, of the University of Évora. He gave an excellent presentation on the 12 Fantasias of Telemann, with an overview, historical information and performance and practice suggestions. Highly useful and inspirational—THANK YOU, André!

Next year we'll be having our 5th (!) Summer Flute Academy, so if you have written a thesis that is nearing completion or has been completed in the last 10 years we'd love you to submit it—I'll let you know when the regulations for 2017 are on the site. Our idea is that many theses are being written but end up on a shelf without having any wider exposure, which is a shame. The winning thesis will also be included in the archives of the Summer Flute Academy online. And we are completely open to theses by non-flutists since many times the subject matter is relevant!

Flutist André Cameira presenting his seminar on the Telemann Fantasias at the 4th Summer Flute Academy

Flutist André Cameira presenting his seminar on the Telemann Fantasias at the 4th Summer Flute Academy

Powell-Happy at the Summer Flute Academy (2)

Here's another great photo from the Powell Flutes trial-session at the 4th Summer Flute Academy at ESMAE, Porto in July. Shown below, Samuel Maia trying out an Aurumite® 9k head joint on a sterling silver Handmade Conservatory flute body. Style style style, Sr. Maia!

Did you know that you can switch out head joints and flute bodies separately? This can be a great solution to finding your dream instrument within your price range!

Aurumite® is a patented-by-Powell fusion of one layer of sterling silver and one layer of gold—in this case, 9 karat gold, on the outside of the tube. Powell offers two other types of Aurumite®: 14k, which has a heavier layer of gold on the inside of the flute tube,and Ruby Aurumite, with a 14k rose gold layer on the outside of the flute tube. All combine the "best of both worlds": the projection of silver with the warmth, depth and finesse of gold. Handmade Conservatory flutes are available in Aurumite 9k, while Handmade Custom are available in 9k, 14k, and Ruby Aurumite. To make an appointment to try them out in Lisbon or in your area, just click here.

Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV

Photo ©Susana Neves/AFV