Lisa-Maree Amos:

Last night we played a very special concert at the Melbourne ABC Studios. Our program was of new music written for Orchestra Victoria through an amazing program via Symphony Australia. It was so rewarding to bring to life the scores written by these young composers, all of whom showed beautiful use of orchestration. The perfprmance will be broadcast on ABC FM in the future - I will be sure to post up when.
I thought it would be interesting to write a little about orchestration and what it means to us as orchestral players.
The term 'blend' comes up a lot these days and perhaps each persons idea of what that really means is different. Understanding when it is important to bring your part to the front, or to melt into the sound of other instruments, shows a sophisticated and mature understanding of orchestration and orchestral playing.
Firstly, you need to be aware of what is going on around you. All too often there is a one dimensional view rather than taking in all that is happening in [...]

This has been an interesting week for me - we started the week with a morning concert of the Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals and Harsayni's The little tailor, and the rest of the week has been a Ballet Triple Bill that includes Prokofiev Classical Symphony and a real finger twister by Glazunov.
Probably the hardest piece of the week has been the Glazunov, titled Birthday Celebration. I am not sure where this piece of music comes from, but I will be sure to copy some of the fiendish solos so that I am prepared for next time! This piece reads literally like an Anderson study.
Carnival of the Animals Voliere is a unique solo. Perhaps the most difficult part of performing the solo is the fact that you cannot control the orchestral intro before the flute even plays. We played it without conductor (actually this is the 2nd time with Orchestra Victoria for me, we also played it at the Port Fairy Music Festival back in 2008). So the strings start with a tremolo, and you are then relying on [...]

I thought it may be interesting to write about the kinds of pieces we are playing in Orchestra Victoria each week. We have such an amazing variety of repertoire that we cover in a very short period of time, and I am fortunate to have the opportunity to perform many of the major flute solos in various settings.
I also wanted to write about different ideas that pop into my head regarding flute pieces that I may be teaching to my students each week.
I sincerely hope that any insights I may have will help you achieve your musical goals, and thank you in advance for reading!