Early Music America Fall 2012 - (Page 38)

Huene. I was immediately drawn to the particular and beautiful qualities of the instrument and, basically, have never looked back. I was often not comfortable playing a lot of the modern flute repertoire. It just didn’t say much to me, and I felt that often the music demanded that the instrument be “overplayed.” It was Prof. Willoughby’s own curiosity during his sabbatical year that completely altered and shaped the course of my career. This is a good thing to remember. One of the keyboard students at the time, James David Christie, was a good friend. Sometime before my senior recital—on which I played recorder, Baroque flute, and modern flute—James organized a student performance of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 using period instruments, and that was a first at Oberlin. The summer after that, I served as Jimmy Caldwell’s assistant at the Baroque Performance Institute, which gave more momentum to my love of Baroque music on “old” instruments. After I graduated from Oberlin, I decided to go to The Hague and study with Vester at the Royal Conservatory. How did that decision come to you? Given my love of the Baroque flute and its music, and Willoughby’s year with Vester, this seemed like the logical next step. I also knew that Holland at the time was considered the “epicenter” of early music. It was an exciting prospect. My year of study with Vester was a wonderful experience. He was a very inspiring teacher and was one of the first in Holland to play the Baroque flute. He had just made a recording of the Mozart flute concerti, and the day I bought the recording, I ran into him in a pub and asked him to sign it for me. 38 Fall 2012 Early Music America Baroque flute and earn a living. So I picked up the modern flute again. At the same time I had an ensemble with Bill Pepper, a harpsichordist. Bill and I played recitals in The Blue Noodle Lounge at the Old Spaghetti Factory—a lot of fun and very atmospheric! After that, in the late ’70s, I helped form the San Francisco Baroque Ensemble. Audiences clearly loved hearing 18th-century music played on period instruments. I think those experiences contributed to What he wrote was, “Dear Janet: I hope my feeling that I was doing the right thing and that I should continue to purand expect that you’ll do better than sue it. Invariably I heard comments like, this.” I remember being floored that he “I find the Baroque flute so much more would say this to a student of his! satisfying to listen to than the modern I am curious as to whether your con- flute.” From the start, there was always temporaries, your colleagues at Ober- very positive feedback about the quality lin and the players of modern instru- of the Baroque flute sound. ments in Europe, supported you. How did you find an instrument at How did they regard someone who the time that you could work with? was doing this very specialized kind My first instrument was a flute by of music? Was it important to you Hans Coolsma. In 1976, I met Rod how they regarded this pursuit? Cameron in San Francisco, who was very It wasn’t important to me. I don’t encouraged that I was playing concerts remember having modern-instrument colleagues in Holland. But at Oberlin… on Baroque flute. He was just starting to make one-keyed, wooden flutes, so he honestly, I didn’t think about it. I was started making instruments for me. I totally convinced of the beauty of the would get students; they would need instrument. For me, it was not, and instruments and order them from Rod. never has been, an historical exercise. For me, the Baroque flute is a contempo- Rod and I are still very close, and for decades he has been one of the rary, living instrument, with a “direct preeminent makers. line” to the composer writing for it. In In 1987, a hurricane in England knocked down a lot of old trees on Box For me, it was not Hill. My dad was over and went out to and never has been, Box Hill and purchased some boxwood an historical exercise. For me, logs, brought them back, cut them into the Baroque flute is billets, and for decades they sat curing in a contemporary, living his workshop in Spokane. Just last May, I took the billets down to Rod, and instrument, with a “direct asked him to make me a flute from the line” to the composer. wood. I’d hoped to be able to play the flute for my dad, but he passed away in October. It will be good to play a concert my experience, the instrument coupled in his memory on this flute. with its music has tremendous expressiveness and beauty, and really does Did you move to Europe because you appeal to the sensibilities of most thought opportunities were greater audiences. After that year in Holland, I moved to there than in the U.S.? Yes. I was playing with Philharmonia San Francisco and married a percussionBaroque Orchestra at the time, but there ist with whom I had a group called Kotekan—three percussionists, modern was little work for flutes in the orchestra. I was aware that there was much more flute, soprano, and double bass! I think going on in Europe. So I decided to pack I’d realized that I couldn’t just play

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Fall 2012

Editor’s Note
EMA Competition
Sound Bytes
Musings: Listening Forward
Profile: A Classical Playlist on Your Cable Television
Recording Reviews
Reconstructing Spanish Songs from the Time of Cervantes
Janet See: Traversist on Two Continents
Musical Mosaic Explores “Perspectives of Interspersing Peoples”
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Conducting Early Music

Early Music America Fall 2012

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