Uptown Flutes: The Virtuoso Flute Ensemble

Reviews

"UpTown Flutes...is one of the best groups I've heard all year...UpTown Flutes deserves major attention as they are top-notch and one of a kind."

--Anthony Aibel, NY Concert Review

"...a good ensemble CD from UpTown Flutes...loved it. Good music and good playing from the excellent group."

--Sir James Galway

"...spectacular...great vitality, virtuosity, and mastery..."

--Ricky Lombardo, Composer

"...an amazing tour de force of ensemble and solo playing"

--Darryl Kubian, Violinist, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

Full Reviews:

Abendmusik Program at United Methodist Church, Morristown, NJ

Creative programming and superb musicianship marked Abendmusik's presentation of the nonet UpTown Flutes. ...UpTown Flutes presented a program of such timbral and stylistic variety that any preconceived notions about what a flute choir is capable of were [essentially] left behind. UpTown Flutes chose repertoire primarily by living composers....giving the ensemble its artistic integrity, an essential feature making its programs so interesting and enjoyable to its audience.

Stone Suite by Sonny Burnette was an outstanding example of the creative possibilities contained in a flute ensemble. In addition flutes, Burnette calls for the performers to play a variety of percussion instruments, clap, sing Native American chant and play pitched soda bottles giving the music a symphonic scope. John McMurtery's florid solo lines on C flute with rich sonorities between bass and alto flutes created a vivid picture of "Sunrise at Yosemite." "In the Shadow of the Great Sphinx" was the most evocative of the four movements. Not all flute ensembles have two bass flutes, but fortunately UpTown does, for the richness of the sonorities achieved by the deep velvety sound of these unusual instruments is a rare experience for any listener. Joined by an alto flute, one could hear the care and artistry it takes to play these instruments in tune. The final "To Kiss The Blarney Stone" is a fast jig that turned the UpTown Flutes into a hand-clapping, foot stomping Irish jug band, much to the delight of the audience.

American composer and flutist Katherine Hoover has contributed very substantial music to a wide range of ensembles. The ensemble presented Hoover's three tone poems collectively entitled Three for Eight evocatively explore oceanic images and Celebration.

Program was varied in size by presenting two quartets, Legends from the Greenwood (1998) by Catherine McMichael followed by The Winds of Change by Donald Draganski.

The concert began with all nine flutists positioned around the church playing Carol Kniebusch's 1996 Dawn Carol. It is an effective canon whose beauty was enhanced by the special deployment of the ensemble around the sanctuary of the church. A deeply appreciative audience, many of whom gave the ensemble a standing ovation, were further treated to a lively and fun encore entitled Rhumba.

Stone Suite by Sonny Burnette was an outstanding example of the creative possibilities contained in a flute ensemble. In addition flutes, Burnette calls for the performers to play a variety of percussion instruments, clap, sing Native American chant and play pitched soda bottles giving the music a symphonic scope. John McMurtery's florid solo lines on C flute with rich sonorities between bass and alto flutes created a vivid picture of "Sunrise at Yosemite." "In the Shadow of the Great Sphinx" was the most evocative of the four movements. Not all flute ensembles have two bass flutes, but fortunately UpTown does, for the richness of the sonorities achieved by the deep velvety sound of these unusual instruments is a rare experience for any listener. Joined by an alto flute, one could hear the care and artistry it takes to play these instruments in tune. The final "To Kiss The Blarney Stone" is a fast jig that turned the UpTown Flutes into a hand-clapping, foot stomping Irish jug band, much to the delight of the audience.

American composer and flutist Katherine Hoover has contributed very substantial music to a wide range of ensembles. The ensemble presented Hoover's three tone poems collectively entitled Three for Eight evocatively explore oceanic images and Celebration.

Program was varied in size by presenting two quartets, Legends from the Greenwood (1998) by Catherine McMichael followed by The Winds of Change by Donald Draganski.

-Raymond Wojcik

Weill recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

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