Postcard from Portugal

Since Beethoven if not much earlier, the beauty of nature has been an inspiration for composers and musicians, and here in Portugal there's no lack of natural beauty to take one's breath away! It's always good to occasionally recharge one's batteries, breathe deeply (without exhaling through a flute!), and drink in the beauty that is all around us.

On a short holiday in the northeastern area of the country, between discovering many enchanting villages and churches—photos coming soon—I am finding the landscape to be gently divine, and remarkably pristine. Here's a photo from near Torre de Moncorvo, something to hold in my memory whenever a piece of unspoilt nature is the remedy for urban ills…

Rolling hills, cork and olive trees in the North of Portugal

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

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

Ancient Multiculturalism

Lately the word "multiculturalism" or globalization gets a lot of exposure. But in fact, multicultural influences have been around for years, centuries, probably millennia.

While enjoying some tourism with my pianist friend Raj Bhimani after a good week of solid rehearsing, we went to the beautiful Monastery of Jeronimos in Belém, Lisbon. It dates from 1601 (after 100 years of construction!) and is in the Manueline Style. It is one of the few buildings in this late Gothic style that survived the catastrophic earthquake of 1755.

The nave is exquisite: lofty and elegant, moving in it's very form and materials. The ribbed vaults are particularly spectacular, and as I was photographing them, I saw how closely their pattern resembles Moorish tile-work, in form and repetition. Considering the dominance of the Moors in Portugal from about 711 to 1249, it shouldn't be too surprising, but somehow, at the very apex of a major cathedral, it IS a surprise … and a reminder that styles and people have always commingled… the melting-pot was not, after all, an American invention!