Shared Recital

Sydney Conservatorium of Music, 2 October, 2023 at 11:00 am

Programme

My Funny Valentine

by Richard Rogers
arr. by Fran Griffin

Eclectix, as suggested by the name, likes to break away from what might be considered standard repertoire from time to time. While this is one of the most famous of jazz standards, Fran’s arrangement keeps the complexity of jazz harmony while the treatment of the parts is more classical and works for ‘classical’ players.

Mugungwha Train

by Brendan Collins

Originally scored for 4 violins this representation of a Mugungwha train has been transcribed for Eclectix by the composer, thus making a wonderful addition to the flute quartet repertoire. The energy of this piece belies the fact the Mugungwha (intercity) trains are the slowest of the three types of trains in South Korea.

Drying Land, Dying Land

by Fran Griffin

After Fire

After Fire is one movement from a much longer work, Drying Land, Dying Land?. It depicts the eerie stillness and silence in the wake of a bushfire, when everything is blackened, the birds have departed, animals have gone underground or perished. Uncannily, this was written just before the 2019 bushfires that caused so much devastation in Eastern Australia. Listen for the D that is sustained throughout the movement until the final chord, where it resolves.

Nitwits

by Richard Percival

This short and quirky jazz style waltz is a tribute to the Nitwits, a comedy band led the piece’s dedicatee, Syd Millward. They played burlesques of classical music until the early 1970s. By the 1960s theatre work in Britain was becoming scarce so the band worked regularly in Paris and then Las Vegas

By The Billabong

by May Howlett

The Old Windmill

The windmill still works, just. May Howlett’s writing is extraordinarily vivid. At the end of the piece the wind may have dropped, or was it the final turn of the ancient mechanism? The flute parts are in no way avant-garde and use no special effects nor techniques, save perhaps for the final chord, yet the writing strongly suggests a somewhat dry and perhaps even uncaring state of mind to the performers, who none-the-less must take every care (as May herself told us at a rehearsal) with the execution of the piece.

Sway

by Pablo Beltran Ruiz
arr. by Fran Griffin

This arrangement of Sway started life as a version for Fran’s local choir, but has found a new life (and a lot more notes) as a flute quartet.