Classical detour

You know how it is when you go back to a place where you spent a lot of time as a kid, and everything looks smaller than you remember it?

That is how it's been going back to the Creative Arts building at San Francisco State University lately, for rehearsals. This is strange because I'm not any taller now than I was then, and yet everything still looks smaller. Everything is right where it used to be...the McKenna Theater lobby, Knuth Hall, the band room, the Casablanca Room, the practice rooms, everything just like I remember it. Only smaller.

I'm rehearsing there because the director of the flute choir there, Gail Edwards, got a grant to record a new piece by Alaskan composer Richard Freeman-Toole. It allowed her to invite me and some of my colleagues to bring the ensemble to a full 16 players as called for in the score. I'm playing bass flute. Julie Burkert and Sarah Holzman are playing (who played in the "Remove Before Flight" premiere), plus Martha Stoddard and Diane Grubbe. It's nice seeing them and playing with them again.

The piece is called "Aurora", and it's about the Aurora Borealis (unlike my piece of the same name which is about a top secret aircraft). It's atmospheric and dreamy. I'm also playing C flute in "La Milonga" by Christopher Caliendo, and both pieces are in the second half.

So admission is free, and there's a reception with refreshments to follow, and it's all very informal except for the recording part. (If you have a cough, remember your lozenges.) The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, December 15th, in Knuth Hall in the Creative Arts building at SFSU.