Christian Baldini, Kingma and the Duke - for solo bass flute [score follower]

Carla Rees, bass flute (Kingma System Closed-Hole Bass Flute) Royal College of Music, London (United Kingdom, 2013) The genesis of this piece began in December 2012. I had had a wonderful experience with a world-première performance by Carla Rees (and Natalie Raybould) sometime in 2003, and I had always thought of writing a solo piece for this great performer. When Carla informed me that she now had a new bass flute that had a quarter tone Kingma system, this immediately made me curious. I always like to explore new possibilities and to incorporate them in the most natural possible way into the musical discourse. So I came up with the idea of a piece which incorporates these new possibilities and presents them in opposition to a more "established" reality. Initially the microtones in this piece are introduced by the world of the multiphonics. These slowly start to permeate the monophonic world, as a result of the interaction between the two main ethos in the piece: a) a well defined, rhythmic, energetic, somewhat severe, and secure monophonic world, and b) a more tentative, introspective, flexible and almost frail reality in the multiphonics realm. Airy and percussive sounds (i.e. tongue ram or slap tongue) are like cousins of these two ethos. They are neither here nor there. Yet they interact with one another. Slowly the multiphonics appearances start to deduct materials from the initial "generous" pool that begins the work (they become simpler, less cluttered and there are fewer). The monophonic, more earthly character, on the other hand, expands its possibilities. There is a number of times a sense of one world affecting the other: multiphonics opening up the space for the energetic world to come out of. There is also the other possibility: the multiphonics being born out of the "hectic" world, which is usually in the hands of monophony. The idea of a microtonal chromatic line that was previously presented is reintroduced at the end, with a very simple idea added to it: a lower voice is introduced, thus resulting in a polyphonic monophony (quasi like multiphonics spread out horizontally), much in the fashion of Bach's multi-part writing for the violin. (Christian Baldini) For more information about the Kingma System, and Carla Rees' research and her PhD dissertation, which includes invaluable examples by multiple composers check out this website: http://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/385/1... https://www.carlarees.co.uk/section81... Carla Rees is a British low flutes specialist who has developed an international reputation for her innovative work. Her multi-faceted career encompasses solo and chamber music performance, collaboration, recording, composing, arranging, editing and teaching. Her performing work encompasses chamber music and solo recitals, appearing frequently at international festivals, including flute festivals in France, Germany, Poland, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan and the UK, as well as at BEAST Feast, Bangor New Music Festival, ICMC, HCMF, Cheltenham Music Festival, Kulturforum Pax Christi, Krefeld (Germany), Open Spaces Festival Nuremburg (Germany), Tirol Easter Festival, (Austria), Lunalia Festival (Belgium) Eglise Saint-Merri, Paris (France) and La Cote Festival (Switzerland), Sonic Circuits (USA), Spark Festival (USA) and others. Recent UK performances include at Iklectik, The Forge and Café Oto (London), MTIDMU Concert Series (Leicester), Fairfield Halls (Croydon), Handel House (London) and York Spring Music Festival. Concerts in 2019 include performances in the UK, Italy, Poland, Costa Rica, Japan and Brazil. An experienced recording artist, she appears on nearly 20 CDs (including for rarescale records, NMC, Metier, Heritage records and Edition Troy), including concerto recordings with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Ensemble Neumusik im Ostseeraum (Germany). She also appears on incidental music for film, TV and radio, including the 2018 release Mary Magdalene, and the BBC Radio 4 series Dear Professor Hawking. She has over 80 published compositions and arrangements (available through Tetractys), with recent performances of her works in the UK, USA, Canada, Japan, France, Poland and Belgium. She completed her PhD at the Royal College of Music in London in 2014, researching extended techniques for Kingma System alto and bass flute with the support of scholarships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the RCM. She is Programme Leader for the distance learning BA(Hons) Music degree at the Open College of the Arts and an Honorary Research Associate and flute teacher at Royal Holloway University of London. She recently became editor of PAN, the Journal of the British Flute Society. Carla plays Kingma System quartertone flutes made by Eva Kingma, Bickford Brannen and Lev Levit.