Sydney Conservatorium of Music, 2 October, 2023 at 11:00 am
My Funny Valentineby Richard Rogers |
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 Trainby 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 Landby 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. |
Nitwitsby 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 Billabongby 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. |
Swayby Pablo Beltran Ruiz |
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. |
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