Desert Echoes Flute Project Concert

Mar 6 at 7:30 pm

General Public - $8, Staff/Senior/Military - $7, Students - $6

Desert Echoes Flute Project presents a varied program that includes traditional flute-playing with some not-so-traditional techniques. The Community Flute Choir opens the concert with The Moonbright Sea, a new work by Alexandra Molnar-Suhajda. This is followed by a new piece by James-Michael Sellers, Petrichor, that evokes that distinctive earthy scent produced by rainfall on dry ground that opens with a unique introduction. CFC closes their set with Handel’s Messiah in 5 Minutes from Judy Nishimura’s “5 Minute Masterpieces” collection presenting highlights of this great work.

The Chamber Choir explores Derek Charke’s Raga Dohara for double flute quartet, a work that is not based on an authentic raga, but creates a busy, yet meditative character with a lot of interplay, double-time feel, duple and triple rhythms occurring at the same time, and non-traditional techniques in this mesmerizing and challenging composition.

DEFproject opens their set with another new composition by Alexandra Molnar-Suhajda, Spirit of the Wind. Next is Triptych for Flutes, a three-movement work written in 2008 by L. Elise Carter: The Medieval Jaunt is a bit quirky and is to be played with a somewhat dark sense of humor, FlutterBy depicts a Connecticut national forest that was very quiet except for the sound of insects, and Catches the Wind was inspired by a medicine woman who has power over the wind. The gorgeous and dreamy Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations follows before the flute choir closes with a 5-movement work by Jonathan Cohen. This new work was inspired by the composer’s visit to Iceland and reflects his musical impressions of the Land of Arctic Fire.

The combined flute choirs close the program with a “beatbox” version of the Bacchanale from the opera Samson et Delila by Saint-Saens. The arranger Christopher Kuhns explores vocal percussion via the flute in the context of this wild dance from the final act of the opera.

*This is an Assigned Seating event. Accessible seats are in rows G.