Saturday, January 27, 2007

Honor Flutists


I spent the morning at The Beach.


I was there to coach the flute section from the SCSBOA All Southern California High School Honor Wind Ensemble.


My private student Emilie is second from the left


This group of talented high school flutists met for the first time yesterday. They are undergoing intensive rehearsals for a concert tomorrow at the Carpenter Center. They were chosen, through auditions, from more than 100 flutists from the Southern California region.

My job was to get them to play together. Softly (loud they could do). As a section. In one hour.

They are all used to being the best flutists at their respective schools. Now these alpha-flutists needed to form a musical team, blending with others as talented as they in a way that sounds unified, not adversarial. No small undertaking.

They applied themselves diligently to the task at hand. By the end of 55 minutes they returned to their rehearsal sounding as if they'd been playing together for years...

...and I went home to practice my flute.

No comments: