A Celebration Album

Description

Four pieces written to celebrate Lynne Williams’ 50th birthday.

Scherzo – Keiron Anderson
This piece was written to blend the piano and flute into a rhythmic, dance- like duet that can be enjoyed by both players and of course an audience. It has a joyful horn pipe theme that was meant to wish happiness for a special birthday.

Rondeau des Perruches – Tony Bridgewater
This piece was written to celebrate Lynne’s special birthday. I have known her for a number of years as a member of the National Flute Orchestra, and I am very pleased to contribute to this birthday book as a thank you to her for her work in publishing my music. I found out that she is interested in parakeets, and so I have written a little scherzo for flute ‘Rondeau des Perruches’ (Rondo of the Parakeets), describing the lively antics of these small, brightly coloured birds. In the main sections the birds perch while making their very characteristic short, sharp chirping sounds. In the first contrasting section they are allowed to take flight, and the flute plays a smoother, more lyrical melody over a rippling piano accompaniment. In the next one the birds are singing shorter, more varied phrases to each other (as the piano and flute share and echo the melody), in imitation of their elaborate and balletic courtship rituals. However, they do not appear to be very successful, and the sharper, more percussive chirping music returns at the end to conclude the piece. Happy Birthday Lynne!

Celtic Dream – Karen Gourlay
Celtic Dream was written as a birthday present for Lynne Williams. The compositional process uses Lynne’s name, with the pitches of the opening lullaby-like theme and harmonic material generated from the letters of her first and name, changing letters to pitches according to their order in the alphabet. The material is developed as a free-flowing presentation of the original theme with influences from Celtic music in the use of texture, repetition and ornamentation. Lyrical lines exploit the expressive potential of the flute, with rhythmic tension introduced through the use of triplets against quintuplets. The piece is circular in nature, with the opening lullaby returning to peacefully close the piece.

I’m Here – Geoff Warren
There were two parallel sources of inspiration for this tile. The piece was composed entirely during the first, rather intense “lockdown” in Italy in early 2020. The constant use of virtual reality, living almost everything on-line, was starting to have a dehumanising effect, and through this piece I realised I was, in a way, reasserting my existence. The other reason was, during this period one of our cats went missing, and when, six weeks later, after we had given up all hope, he miraculously turned up on our doorstep howling in a hoarse voice (if a cat can sound hoarse) and seemed to be saying “I’m here”, it was decided. I wanted the piece to have a simple “life asserting“ melody at the start, to slip into a slightly tricky, funky fusion B section, and then back to the main theme. I was very happy to write this piece for Lynne, and thank Rob for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this collection.