Lost and Found:

This project grew out of the first covid lockdown. Like many people I was trying to find ways of staying active and creative during the covid crisis when we couldn’t play live concerts. Lost and Found was designed to be possible no matter what happened with lockdowns and travel restrictions. It seems like another world looking back at those times.

I applied to Creative Scotland and was very grateful to receive funding which enabled this project to happen. With support from Creative Scotland and from SOUND Scotland the work developed throughout 2021. The project allowed me to commission 5 brilliant composers: Lewis Murphy, Laura Bowler, Claire McCue, David Fennessy and Tansy Davies to write for me.

They all wrote fantastic new works for solo flute or alto flute, all inspired by the title - Lost and Found. I made recordings of all of the new work, as well as recordings of some favourite existing pieces by Kazuo Fukushima, Bill Sweeney, Kevin Leomo and Edwin Roxburgh. The 10 little videos are all up on my Youtube channel. I hope you enjoy exploring the music.

I played a live concert in October 2021 at Sound Festival in Aberdeen to premiere all of the new work. This concert was also recorded by BBC Radio 3 for their New Music Show. My own new piece, Neon Flicker was also written as part of this project, and it is now published by Tetractys.

I am so grateful to all of the composers who have made this project a success, and to Sound Scotland for their huge and ongoing support.

You will find more information and content below which was posted here as the project developed:

2nd March Update: Here are the final 3 of my 10 videos for the Lost and Found project. They have been up on YT for a few days, but I also wanted to share them here. It has been an amazing project.

I’d like to say huge thank you to all of the composers for their fantastic work!

Here are Laura Bowler’s Traces, David Fennessy’s Divje Babe for Alto flute, and Yoik II by Tansy Davies. I hope you enjoy having a listen.

11th October Update:

Here are 2 more videos. My new piece Neon Flicker, and also Nocturne by Kevin Leomo. I hope you enjoy!

11th October Update:

Live concert of all of the 6 new pieces developed in this project will be at Sound festival on 23rd October at 3pm. Hope to see you there. https://sound-scotland.co.uk/event/lost-and-found

12th September 2021 Update:

I’ve just put 3 more videos up onto Youtube today. William Sweeney’s piece Óran-Buidheachas, and the first of the new commissions for this project from Claire McCue and Lewis Murphy. Huge thanks to all of the composers and I hope you enjoy the music!

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5th July 2021 Update:

My second film is Mei by Kazuo Fukushima, now up on Youtube, and linked below. I have loved this piece for a long time, so it was an absolute pleasure to record it. It is deeply emotional and expressive piece, and uses the characteristics of the flute to full effect. I hope you enjoy it.

I have taken delivery of new pieces from Lewis Murphy and Claire McCue which is very exciting, so I am starting to prepare to record them. I am also working on Kevin’s piece, so watch this space for some new content over the next few weeks….

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16th April 2021: Update:

The first video for the project is of The Curlew by Edwin Roxburgh. This has been one of my favourite pieces of music for a long time. The gorgeous lyrical flexibility of the music suits the alto flute perfectly and it is a deeply emotional piece.

I hope you like my home made video, it has been fun learning to make these little films. My performance is recorded “as live” in a single take and then mixed with videos of the performance and some of my own photographs.

Here is Edwin’s programme note for The Curlew:

While on tour in Australia with the Menuhin Festival Orchestra, Roxburgh came across the paintings of Ainslie Roberts which relate to the Dreamtime myths of the Australian Aboriginals. Later, when the flautist Christopher Hyde-Smith commissioned him to compose a work to represent the six differing flutes in his collection, the characterisation of six of the paintings made an ideal association for each instrument. (Tenor, Flute d’Amore, Piccolo, Bass, Alto, C). No. 5 is The Curlew. The original version of Dreamtime was for Piano and the 6 flutes. A later version deployed only three instruments (C, Alto and Piccolo) with String Orchestra. The Curlew uses the poignant quality of the Alto flute to project the story of Bima, who becomes transformed into a curlew, wandering the forest at night lamenting the cruel death of her son. The sadness of such a lament is consistent with several works by the composer, which empathise with the victims of conflict across the world.

https://ump.co.uk/composer/edwin-roxburgh/

If you are a flute player and would like to play this piece it can be purchased from ump https://ump.co.uk/catalogue/edwin-roxburgh-the-curlew/ or from most good music shops