Handout from Mid-South Flute 2010 lecture: Folk, ethnic, and period flutes for fun and profit

Here is the handout from today’s presentation at the Mid-South Flute Festival at the University of Memphis campus. The audience was small but enthusiastic, asked good questions, and some of them stayed extra long to try out some instruments from my collection.

New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Feb. 15, 2010

Below are a few audio clips from my recent faculty woodwinds recital at Delta State University.

At this point it’s gotten hard for me to imagine doing a full recital on a single instrument. I enjoy getting to play several, and audiences seem to enjoy the variety. And since this was my first faculty recital at my new gig, I wanted each of my students to hear me perform something from the core repertoire of their instrument.

I would like, ultimately, to be able to put together a full recital of woodwind pieces without making any special concessions for the fact that I am playing multiple instruments. In this case I did play it a little on the safe side: I chose a program that was not overwhelmingly technical, and I programmed something short of an hour’s worth of music so that I could take a few extra minutes between pieces.

One note-to-self for next time: I experienced a few onstage symptoms of not being thoroughly warmed up on each instrument (water in oboe toneholes, low note response issues on bassoon). I purposefully avoided playing too much on the day of the recital, but I think I can find a better balance the next time around.

Read more

Handouts from NASA 2010 woodwind doubling lecture

Here are handouts from the lecture I gave at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the North American Saxophone Alliance. The lecture was entitled, “Woodwind Doubling for the 21st-century Saxophonist: Increasing Versatility without Sacrificing Virtuosity.” Woodwind Doubling for the 21st-century Saxophonist: Increasing Versatility without Sacrificing Virtuosity Problems Saxophonist-Doublers Have (Try Not to Sound Like a Saxophone … Read more

NASA 2010 Biennial Conference report

NASA logoI had a great time at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the North American Saxophone Alliance. It was held on the campus of the University of Georgia, my alma mater, so I got to see many old friends and colleagues.

A more poignant aspect of this year’s conference was the conspicuous absence of Dr. Kenneth Fischer, my former saxophone teacher and the intended conference host. After Dr. Fischer’s very untimely passing a few months ago, many among the NASA leadership made extra efforts to ensure that the conference went on as planned. Surely not the least among these was Dr. Stephen Fischer, Kenneth Fischer’s son, my old classmate, and a brilliant saxophonist in his own right. I noted that the conference program read:

Hosts
Dr. Kenneth Fischer
Dr. Stephen Fischer

I was in attendance Thursday through Saturday (the conference began on Wednesday). It’s such a big conference that lots of things are going on at once, and there’s no way to get to everything. But here are a few events that I caught that were highlights for me:

Read more