Pedro de Alcantara @ 5th Summer Flute Academy!!

Consider yourself invited to attend our 5th (!) Summer Flute Academy— it promises to be the biggest, craziest and most fun EVER! Don't come to sit there watching, you'll be there to play, play, play, and also do a little listening and lots of trying out of new ideas!

There is really TOO MUCH planned to list it all in one go, so I'll just start in with one hot-off-the press bit of news: Pedro de Alcantara, one of the world's best-known teachers of the Alexander Technique and a wildly creative person, will be present! I'm very excited to announce this as it is not easy to get Pedro, based in Paris, "down" to Portugal, not for lack of interest, but only because he's often busy working in exotic places such as Australia or Japan! 

Pedro is Brazilian, trained in the US and the UK as a cellist, and has lived and worked in Paris for quite some time. He is the author of "Indirect Procedures", a book about the Alexander Technique for musicians published by Oxford University Press, has released several CDs, including improvisations, and is also a writer of novels. Check out his site and blog!

But mostly, he is a wonderful, insightful and unique person, who will bring his own ideas on music-making to all of us at the Academy! Thank you, Pedro, for fitting us into your schedule! "Expect nothing, anticipate anything."

Pedro de Alcantara, musician, writer, thinker, healer, creativity expert

ESART - Auditions Overflow with Talent!

It was an exciting, if long, day at ESART last Sunday! My wonderful colleague (and Powell player) Professor Stephanie Wagner and I listened to twenty candidates for the Bachelor's program (licenciatura) — this was a tie with last year's number, and the largest applicant group by instrument!

To the hopeful candidates performing for us, it is of course very stressful, but an important thing to know is that what any jury really wants to hear is GREAT PLAYING! We are "with you" out there on the stage, we've been there, too! Never think the jury just wants to toss people off the ship—it really is not like that!

And we were extremely pleased with the level of the young flutists! For someone who has been in Portugal for quite some time, you might say the level would have been unimaginable even 5-10 years back. Therefore, we congratulate the hard-working, dedicated teachers who have produced such fine young players!

Lastly, we thank all twenty flutists for making the effort to be there and putting out your best! Bravi tutti!!

ESART Classe de Flauta Transversal, 2016-17 (with fun filters!)

Lisbon — it's Jacaranda Time!

The jacaranda time is here! I love the outrageous purple of the blooms contrasting with the typical yellow buildings on the left and especially the pistachio-green building on the right — repainted a few years back, surely with this (often brief) moment in mind! One torrential rain or wind, and the blooms fall to the street, also beautiful, but then are lost. Fleeting beauty, rather like music…Carpe Diem!

India Travelogue: the Whirlwind Begins!

Nov. 2016—Our first two, oops, three! concerts have already taken place since I last wrote—such is the touring life: lots of packing and unpacking, setting up, taking down, travel, EATING (great food!), and trying to fit in some sleep! 

The first concert was at the "Piano Man" Jazz Club in Delhi, which was a totally chic venue with a fantastically warm audience, many of whom were hearing their first-ever live Western classical music concert! We were honored! The Club features not only Jazz, but every kind of music, including Indian Classical music and Western pop music of all kinds. A great openness to all music is the result!

The Club has produced over 380 concerts in just 14 months, IMAGINE THAT! 

Our concert was tremendously well-received, with special kudos to the new trio by Carlos Marecos' which had its premiere. Many in the audience came up afterwards to mention how moved they were by the work, which depicts seven rural villas in Portugal with the special harmonic genius of Marecos setting the scene for each. Thank you, Carlos, for such a magnificent piece!!

Photos: Arjun Sagar Gupta, owner of the Piano Man; a fine collection of recorders; Syrinx : XX colleagues rehearsing; a seriously cool chandelier made of, well, trumpets!!