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American Music for Flute and Guitar
Crónica del Descubrimiento
Among the oldest instruments known to the world from Greek iconography and mythology are the aulos and the kitharra. While primitive, the kitharra is the result of the discoveries of the great mathematician Pythagoras. Both instruments have directly descended to the present day in the form of the flute and the guitar, eventually making their way to America in the galleons of the conquistadors from Europe that sailed to the New World. Much in the way of folk music was first performed on the guitar and the flute, now among the most popular instruments in the world. The greatest composers of the second half of the twentieth century have written for this combination — this new repertoire is highly virtuosic for each instrument, without sacrificing a pastoral vision of beauty which is indigenous to the ensemble.
Katherine Hoover (b. 1937)
Composer, conductor and flutist, Katherine Hoover is the recipient of a National Endowment Composers Fellowship and the Academy of Arts and Letters Composition Award. A graduate of the Eastman School, her work is recorded on Koch, Delos, Parnassus, Centaur, Cantilena, Leonarda and Albany Records.
Ms. Hoover has written the following note about Canyon Echoes: “This piece was inspired by a book called The Flute Player, a simply and beautifully illustrated retelling of an Apache folktale by Michael Lapaca. It is the story of two young Apaches from different areas of a large canyon, where the streams ripple and the wind sings in the cottonwoods. They meet at a Hoop Dance, and dance only with each other. The next day, as the girl works up the side of the canyon in her father's fields, the boy sits below by a stream and plays his flute for her (flute playing was a common manner of courtship). She puts a leaf in the stream which flows down to him, so he knows she hears. This continues for a time until the boy is woken one morning and told he is of age to join the hunt — a journey of some weeks, leaving momentarily. The girl still listens each day for the flute until, feeling abandoned, she falls ill and dies. When the boy returns, he runs to play for her — but there is no leaf. When he learns of her death, he runs into the hills, and his flute still echoes when the breezes blow through the cottonwoods, and the streams ripple in the canyon.”
Currently composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Tower is also the Asher Edelman Professor at Bard College in New York. She has also been composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony, and was named the recipient of the Grawemeyer Award and the Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composers. Joan Tower received her DMA from Columbia University and was pianist of the Da Capo Chamber Players. Her works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the world.
Ms. Tower has written the following note about Snow Dreams: “There are many different images of snow, its forms and its movements: light snow flakes, pockets of swirls of snow, rounded drifts, long white plains of blankets of snow, light and heavy snowfalls, etc. Many of these images can be found in the piece, if in fact, they need to be found at all. The listener will determine that choice.”
Crónica del Descubrimiento (1992)
Roberto Sierra is Professor of Composition at Cornell University and has been composer-in-residence with the Milwaukee Symphony. His works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the United States. Sierra's music may be heard on New World Records, Newport Classics, New Albion, ADDA, VRAS Productions, Musical Heritage Society, Koss Classics, CRI, BMG, Dorian Records, and Albany Records.
Mr. Sierra has supplied the following note about his work for flute and guitar: “These six pieces are a series of chronicles (crónica in Spanish) that I composed on the subject of the meeting between the aboriginal Indian culture of the Caribbean Islands and the Spanish Conquistadors. The image of surprise and bewilderment from both sides (there was less information available in the 1490's than what we have at hand today) is a particularly fascinating thought for me. What did the “Indians” think about the conquistadors and vice-versa? In Leyenda Taína (Taíno Leyend— being the name of the tribe that inhabited the island of Puerto Rico) and Danza, I put in musical thought my own interpretation of some of the things that might have occurred 500 years ago. Noche is a tone poem that evokes the primeval night sounds of the Caribbean nights. En busca del oro alludes to the engine that moved the conquest: the search for gold and riches. Cancíon and Battala close the cycle with stark contrasts: the innocence of a simple song and the violence of battle.”
August Read Thomas (b. 1964)
Augusta Read Thomas is a Professor on the composition faculty at Eastman School of Music and she was composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony for many years. She studied at Northwestern University, Yale University, and at the Royal Academy. Her works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Ms. Thomas is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including those from ASCAP, BMI, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Koussevitzky Foundation.
About Eclipse Musings, Augusta Thomas writes: “Music of all kinds constantly amazes, surprises, propels and seduces me into a wonderful and powerful journey. I am happiest when I am listening to music and in the process of composing music. I care deeply that music is not anonymous and generic or easily assimilated and just as easily dismissed. I would say that Eclipse Musings has urgent, seductive, and compelling qualities of sometimes complex, but always logical thought, allied to sensuous and engaging sonic profiles. Eclipse Musings is a delicate and intricate work in which a series of provocations, instigated fundamentally by flute and guitar inflection, are ornamented and interwoven throughout the ensemble. Throughout the work the soloists are featured, at times with impassioned cadenza passages, at times with more reflective materials. In all cases, the soloists sing long, earnest, and cantabile lines. The composition was funded by a grant from the Fromm Foundation and is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Bonita Boyd and Nicholas Goluses.”
“Billed as the greatest artist of her generation, she may well be; she certainly set a mark for young (and older established) flutists to aim for.” Fanfare Magazine thus lauded Bonita Boyd in reviewing her recording of Paganini Violin Caprices transcribed for solo flute. Donal Henehan of the New York Times referred to Miss Boyd's Alice Tully Recital Hall as “…a flabbergasting account of her talent.” Albert Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times wrote about Bonita's Los Angeles debut: “James Galway and Pierre Rampal are now joined in the forward ranks by a cherry young American girl named Bonita Boyd.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine said of her European debut: “The American press compares her to James Galway and Jean-Pierre Rampal and her Frankfurt debut indeed confirmed that Bonita Boyd is a musician of great dimension.” Of her Australian appearance, The Australian wrote: “Like Moiseiwitsch and Dame Myra Hess, Boyd's playing is informed by a sense of unhurried serenity whether in episodes of reflective nature or in more bravura passages. And this, allied to a superbly secure flute line, a wide tonal range and a sure sense of style resulted in interpretive magic.”
The combination of her artistry and dazzling virtuosity makes Bonita Boyd one of today's most exciting flutists. Her extensive concert tours have taken her throughout the United States, South America, Latin America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia as soloist with orchestra, recitals, and master teacher. Her recording of “Les Six” was honored by Stereo Review Magazine in its Record of the Year Awards and by High Fidelity Magazine in its Critics' Choice Column.
Bonita's earlier career was marked by appointment as principal flutist of the Rochester Philharmonic and Chatauqua Symphony at age 21, as the youngest principal in a major United States orchestra, and by her appointment as Flute Professor at Eastman School of Music at age 25.
“Wit, charm, virtuosity, and depth of feeling, adding up to the humanity to which all artists should aspire. A model of virtuosic display. Goluses was dazzling,” wrote the New Jersey Star Ledger about Nicholas Goluses, one of America's most sought after guitarists. The New York Times wrote: “Goluses produced an elegant sound. And the finales, taken dangerously fast, were accurate, transparent, and impressively articulated. Mr. Goluses gave persuasive, energetic readings.” The Generalanzeiber (Bonn, Germany), acclaimed: “Goluses reached the highest levels of instrumental virtuosity.”
Nicholas Goluses appears as soloist, chamber music player and with orchestras across North America, South America, Europe, and the Far East to critical acclaim. He has performed as concerto soloist with the Savannah Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Colorado Springs Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, American Wind Orchestra, Manhattan Symphony, Louisiana Sinfonietta, Jacksonville Symphony, the Macon Symphony and has collaborated with the American String Quartet, the Ying Quartet and flutist Bonita Boyd; his New York performances have included recitals at Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufmann Auditorium, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Goluses records for BMG, Naxos, and Albany Records. Goluses has received wide critical and audience acclaim for his CD of sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach: “Played with masterly control of form and substance” (Cleveland Plain Dealer); of his CD of late guitar works of Fernando Sor, Fanfare wrote: “Nicholas Goluses plays superlatively” and Classical Guitar (London) wrote “His performance compels the highest praise.”
Nicholas Goluses is Professor of Guitar and director of the guitar programs at the Eastman School of Music, widely recognized as one of the world's leading centers for guitar study, where he is also chairman of the string department. Goluses has held the Andrés Segovia Faculty Chair at Manhattan School of Music where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, and was the recipient of both the Pablo Casals Award “for Musical Accomplishment and Human Endeavor” and the Faculty Award of Distinguished Merit. Dr Goluses is in great demand for master classes at leading institutions throughout the world.
Committed to performing new music for the guitar, Goluses has given world premiere performances of numerous concertos for guitar and orchestra as well as solo and chamber music by many of today's leading composers.
The duo of Bonita Boyd and Nicholas Goluses has recently received much acclaim, the two members sharing not only their instrumental and musical skill, but also an artistic vision which embraces an intense communication with audiences, support for new repertoire, and commitment to teaching.
Eastman Virtuosi Soloists include Zvi Zeitlin, concertmaster, Daniel Hung, violin, George Taylor, viola, Margery Hwang, cello, Jesse Watras, bass, Richard Killmer, oboe, Kenneth Grant, clarinet, John Hunt, bassoon, Peter Kurau, horn, Courtney Bress, harp, Steven Owen and Blake Tyson, percussion.
Recorded in Kilbourn Hall, Rochester, New York on May 1 and 3 and September 8 and 9, 1997.
Edited: West End Mastering
Production assistance: Steve Thachuk, Augusta Read Thomas
Engineer (Eclipse Musings): David Peelle
Program notes by Nicholas Goluses
Special thanks to James Undercofler
Guitar by Ignacio Fleta • Flute by Geoffrey Guo
Publishers: Canyon Echoes (Papageno Press, New York); Snow Dreams (G. Schirmer, Inc., New York); Crónica del Descubrimiento (Editions Orphée, Columbus); Eclipse Musings (Theodore Presser, Bryn Mawr)
Photo of Nicholas Goluses by Christian Steiner
American Music for Flute and Guitar
5 Snow Dreams (1983) [8:58]
Crónica del Descubrimiento (1992)
9 En busca del oro [4:31]
Duo Concerto for Flute, Guitar and Chamber Orchestra
12 Sensuous and mysterious [6:23]
13 Playful and sparkling [4:15]
Eastman Virtuosi Soloists
Eclipse Musings (1997) Duo Concerto for Flute, Guitar and Chamber Orchestra
Sensuous and mysterious [6:23]
Playful and sparkling [4:15]
Eastman Virtuosi Soloists
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