Weill recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
June 15, 2002
 UpTown Flutes, the ensemble-in-residence at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, is one of the best groups I've heard all year. They regularly perform new music, and the work Three for Eight, an absolutely wonderful and original piece of inspired craftsmanship, gave the group opportunities to show how good they are on both the technical and artistic fronts. The composer Katherine Hoover, in this work, from 1996, incorporated touches of flutter tongue, trills and chirping dissonance in ways that sounded only organic and tasteful. In the first movement, the group kept a dry, white toned, non-vibrato sound that was not only evocative and organ-like, but showed off the player' impressive ears for pitch, as out of tune notes are much easier to cover up when vibrato is employed. Over the Edge by Benjamin Boone, written for flutes with percussion, is also a great piece of music. The work contrasted nicely in terms of compositional structure - it's in one long movement - and is primarily about syncopated rhythms and the stylized variety of those rhythms. The ensemble was tight throughout their jazzy performance. The work and its players were mesmerizing with the whisper-effect interruptions and repetitions-yet they never bored the listener. I was on the edge of my seat by the work's end, as the pace quickened and the interplay got more hyperactive.
The concert was enhanced by the John Davis transcription of the third movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3. The program needed contrast and it barely got it, as I would have preferred to have heard a couple less 20th century works and more transcriptions of earlier styles like this one. In the Bach/Davis, Uptown played with excellent balance, voicing and phrasing. In the program, it looks like John Davis has the dates of 1685-1750, and to some of the audience's surprise, and horror, (many people were young) his ghost presumably and miraculously stood up to take a bow during the applause. The opening work, Ricky Lombardo's Renaissance for a New Millennium included a contrabass flute of all things, and it was the most cumbersome and bizarre thing you could imagine at a flute concert. But it added a deal of color to the group's sound as it had the eerie combination of a low organ stop and a bass clarinet. Nymphs for the Flute Quartet by Gary Schocker was played so well that one might wonder if a studio recording was playing back stage. (Their first CD is out, by the way.) The ensemble in the Schocker piece was superb and the intonation and blend were dead on. Memories of East Tennessee, a sextet, is a cute set of hymnal pieces and folk dances that are monophonically and plainly written but with some good ol' country flavor just the same. The vibrato blend and intonation weren't as good here, but it was played with a hearty spirit. I commend Uptown Flutes for commissioning and presenting new and recently written works, but I hope they will intermingle more arrangements of works from other styles ranging anywhere from the Renaissance to Impressionism. In any case, UpTown Flutes deserves major attention as they are top-notch and one of a kind.
-Anthony Aibel
New York Concert Review
Vol 9 No 2 9th Anniversary Season Summer/Fall 2002 |
