New Zealand Woodwind Competitions 2010 Timetable 28th – 29th August, 2010 The Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School Silver Rd, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand  

New Zealand Woodwind Competitions 2010 Prize List, Rules and Conditions of Entry 27th – 29th August, 2010 The Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School Silver Rd, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand  

The New Zealand Woodwind Competition is an annual national competition, held at the end of August, for Primary, Intermediate, Secondary, Tertiary and Adult students of the saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe and bassoon. Great prizes from our sponsors are given out each year.
27th – 29th August, 2010
The Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School
Silver Rd, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand

The 2009 New Zealand Woodwind Competition, an annual national competition, was again a great success. As always, the standard was very high and our congratulations go out to all winners and competitors alike! Details of the 2010 New Zealand Woodwind Competitions will be available soon...

What is the competition all about? The New Zealand Woodwind Competition is an annual national competition, held in September, for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary students of the saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe and bassoon. Great prizes from our sponsors are given out each year.
28th – 30th August, 2009
The Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School
Silver Rd, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand

A Norwegian folk flute and traditional shepherd’s flute, the seljefloyte plays a significant role in the lives of the people within the folktale of Nøkken Draugen. Widespread throughout Norway, the seljefløyte or borkfløyte (willow bark flute or sallow flute) is considered to be an instrument of spring as that is the easiest time to harvest the willow bark to make flutes...

It’s really, quite simple: what instruments we know about now are the ones that have managed to survive through a historical “development” in a process that seems to be conceived as a cultural evolution. Rarely do we ask ourselves why rebecs, ophicleides, musettes, or serpents (or their potentially modernized versions), do not appear in the symphony orchestra....

Since 1927 the flute has taken its part in jazz ensemble recordings. The playing of Alberto Socarras, Wayman Carver, and others is well documented in Flute Focus issue of October 2008. In listening to these low fidelity recordings we need to keep the music in the context of its time. Questions arise like, how does the flute compare and contrast with other instrumentalists in the band? What does it contribute to the music?...

In the eighteenth century there was a great trend for decorating the melody, particularly in slow movements, and some music was written deliberately plain, with the expectation that the performer would embellish it in his own way. And yet, ornamentation is of little use if it does not reflect and enhance the character of the music...

Dear Flute Colleagues, I am pleased to announce the European premiere of my Sonata for Flute and Percussion. To help promote future performances, I have made the music available free for download on my webpage. I hope you will help me spread the word about this piece and would be delighted to learn of any plans to perform it...

Have you ever wondered about the role of feeling and consciousness and intuition while playing or performing on the flute – and pondered on how to get in touch with that capacity more easily? It’s that lovely realm that we sometimes access when we go beyond technique and mind and become one with the music itself, as though we ourselves are an instrument and some beauty that is not our own is flowing through us. Athletes call it ‘being in the zone’ – a rapture of pure consciousness when the mind is free of all thought, constraint, self-consciousness and everything we do flows from some deeper part of our being. The ego ‘I’ that separates musician from music has gone and we have become the music itself.  

At the 2009 NFA Convention in New York, I caught up with Aldo Baerten and asked him about what interests and motivates him to do all that he does in the flute world...

In considering an injury (or potential injury) to the hand we must think of its relationship to the neck and upper extremity. It is anatomically and functionally an integrated unit rather than a collection of parts.....

This article is intended to inform those who may be experiencing some discomfort, have students struggling, and/or those who are plain curious. All of the items discussed in this article are things you can try on your flute, without permanent alteration to your instrument and without major financial investment. These items are available to apply to your flute, or are do-it-yourself creations using components readily available from your local building supplies store and your local chemist...

Over the course of her career Kemler has proven to be a versatile, energetic player with a knack for adapting music to her own personal styling. As a world class contemporary flutist, Kemler has shown the fluting community that you don’t have to stick with what you start with to be a successs...

Ultimately, this book is about the construction of a unique flute and in this it succeeds brilliantly. I’m sure all flutemakers wish they had such a great document of the work we do to help people understand how we work, what goes into it, and where we spend our creativity.....

Nino Rota is a composer less well known for his solo and chamber music than for his film scores especially for the wonderful Fellini movies of the 70’s and for the “Godfather” films...

American flautist Michele Frisch and harpist Kathy Kienzle have joined forces to produce a sumptuous chamber music recording of popular operatic melodies....

Former member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Leonard Lopatin has added another string to his bow by developing and making his own instruments. Does the squared keyed flute surpass its round-keyed counterpart? You have to listen to find out....

This 3 CD set issued in France in 2002, is a re-mastering of rare early performances by Jean-Pierre Rampal, recorded on 78 rpm discs and tapes between 1946 and 1959. To quote the liner notes, “Follow him in his expression: his flute echoes throughout all eternity.”...

Many difficult passages are lost due to poor control of the tone when we are preoccupied with the rapid succession of notes. On the other hand, faulty phrasing of slow lines can often be attributed to uncoordinated fingerings. We tend to emphasize sound as an entity unto itself, relevant in the domain of musicality, whereas fingers are the attributes of virtuosity, an unavoidable and cumbersome necessity.  

Dear Mary, I have attached a PDF of the score (2 pages) for "Much Suspicion", which was premiered by Yuri Tamashiro and Eshian Teo at St Johns Presbyterian in Wellington on 12 Dec 2008...

If every flautist would pronounce the ‘Tip-of-the-Tongue Tales’ with a clear ‘t’, articulation on the flute would be a piece of cake.....

"When Can I Start the Next Piece?" In the absence of a simple answer, I am going to default to a response that would stand up in court if you had to defend it under cross-examination: “It depends.”...

It is very common for teachers to teach in the way they themselves were taught. We may have had fine teachers, but if we started at an older age, caught on quickly, happened to produce reasonable tone, and read music easily, we may not actually have many skills or tools for teaching much younger children or for solving problems (or avoiding them in the first place).