Congratulations, Aldo Baerten!

Great news from the fabulous flutist Aldo Baerten, our guest teacher at the 4th Summer Flute Academy:

Aldo Baerten will leave the Münster Musikhochschule and replace Professor Marina Piccinini at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Median in Hannover, Germany. He will keep his positions as Principal Flute with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and at the Music Universities in Antwerp and Utrecht.

As we saw during his recital and master class at the Academy, Aldo is a wonderful musician, flutist and teacher, inspiring and warm, so the Hannover Hochschule is very lucky to get him! Aldo, a Powell Flute Artist, was sponsored at the Academy by the generosity of Powell Flutes in Boston. BRAVO, Aldo, from your fans in Portugal!

Professor Aldo Baerten working with Constantino Dykiy at the 4th Summer Flute Academy.

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

Vital Signs

I've had the good fortune this week of meeting and talking with the American pianist Nelson Ojeda Valdès, a fellow native of Los Angeles, California (which I don't come across too often here in Lisbon!) He's a friend of also-originally-from-LA pianist Raj Bhimani, who is also here in Lisbon rehearsing for upcoming concerts of Syrinx: XXII, so it's been a California-on-the-Tejo week for me!

Nelson, who is very active in New York as a performer, teacher and adjudicator, has a succinct way to refer to the two basic impulses of music, pulse and breath, calling them the "vital signs". He means that pulse and breath are just as necessary to music as they are to bodily survival; we performers should always strive to communicate these elements clearly to the listener, just as our bodies clearly need both pulse and breath to maintain life. 

Of course, pulse is fundamental—we all know the magic when music makes us tap our foot or want to dance along—and I always love to hear a non-wind-player talking about breathing in relation to music and phrasing. Of course, we flutists and wind players MUST breathe, but the bottom line is that the MUSIC must breathe (even Wagner, eventually…). Nelson's concept helps put the issue of breath on the right footing, as something good and desirable, rather than a necessary evil—I love it!

Post-rehearsal R&R with pianists Raj Bhimani and Nelson Ojeda Valdès

ESART! Scene+Symmetry

While having lunch back in June at ESART, two percussion students set up for an impromptu concert in the bar, and I couldn't resist photographing the beautiful symmetry of the two performers, José Silva and Francisco Viera, and the staircase above echoing their marimbas. 

The music was a delight, energetic but entrancing, and extremely well-played. We all dream of large, important halls, but sometimes the greatest pleasure and impact for the listener is in a more intimate, not to mention unexpected location. We all should remember this power of music, and that it exists any time we play, not just in "big" concerts. A concert is the size we make it!

Impromptu percussion recital at ESART — bravo, José Silva and Francisco Viera!

On the Road to Success…

If ever a picture is worth a thousand words, this is one! Found it on FaceBook somewhere (thank you, Universe) and it's priceless. Especially for us musicians—we've been playing for X years and we're STILL practicing? Yup! Alas, there are no shortcuts… 

So the only solution is to enjoy the actual practicing, the preparation, the "slog", while we wait for the results to come. The more we focus on the process, enjoying it and even finding a passion for it, the sooner we'll be taken by surprise — in a positive sense — and by "success"!

Words of wisdom…

Powell-Happy… in San Diego!

Here's a great photo hot off the wires from the NFA Convention in San Diego—Christina Cobas of Powell Flutes in Boston, and Gary Woodward, Powell Artist, longtime Powell fan, and Professor of Flute at the U.S.C. among other positions. Christina, the wonderful "go-to" person at Powell, sent it just to make me (further) JEALOUS that I was unable to attend the Convention—even though it was held practically around the corner from where I grew up! 

Gary has always played on a number of Powell flutes, as well as a Powell piccolo he inherited from his teacher, Roger Stevens, who was Principal Flute of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Gary, whose second love is automobiles, once drove from L.A. to Utah (!) to pick up an early Powell, sight unseen—that's when I started to understand what special instruments they were. That was back in high school or early college days, when Gary was my teacher; in a few short years he took me miles in my playing, yet all the hard work just seemed like fun. THANK YOU, Gary, for that gift, and hope to see you "live" very soon! Thanks, Christina, for sending the photo!

Christina Cobas, of Powell Flutes, with Gary Woodward, Powell Artist in San Diego