BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
CD Review
Vāyu: Multi-cultural flute solos from the twenty-first century
Nina Assimakopoulos, flute
Label: AMP Recordings
A slow glissando creeps up the flute like a whistling kettle before Nina Assimakopoulos launches into the upbeat blues melody of Robert Dick’s ‘Fish are Jumping’. According to the composer, “when ‘Fish are Jumping’ is well played, the audience should feel it has had the experience of hearing a band, a band with a totally happening flute soloist up front”. Assimakopoulos’ tight, energetic rhythms and elastic glissandi capture this mood perfectly, her flute evoking the twangy blues-guitar music that inspired Dick.
‘Fish are Jumping’ is the opening track on Assimakopoulos’ new album, ‘Vāyu: Multi-cultural flute solos from the twenty-first century’. Her CD takes the listener through the varied sounds of late 20th and early 21st Century flute playing, presenting works that have become contemporary classics in the flute repertoire such as Ian Clarke’s ‘Zoom Tube’ and Katherine Hoover’s ‘Kokopelli’ alongside lesser known works.
The most venerable piece on the recording is Kazuo Fukushima’s haunting Mei, composed in 1962. The title means “obscure, pale and intangible” and the work was written after the tragic death of Fukushima’s friend Wolfgang Steinecke. Mei draws heavily on the music of the end-blown Japanese flute, the shakuhachi, and Assimakopoulos’ flexible tone conjures the diverse colours and dramatic pitch bends of this instrument. Shirish Korde’s ‘Tenderness of Cranes’ also explores elements of shakuhachi performance practice, though the mood is more intense; meditative passages give way to virtuosic flurries of notes that leave an afterglow of pitches hanging in the air. Wil Offermans’ ‘Honami’ channels Japanese music and instruments more generally, Assimakopoulos’ breath and sound evokes, in the composer’s words, “the waving scenery one can see when the wind blows over a blooming rice field”.
Margaret Fairlie-Kennedy’s ‘Spirit Man’ and Hoover’s ‘Kokopelli’ are inspired by Native American traditions. Linda Boyden, of Cherokee ancestry, based ‘Spirit Man’ on a poem of the same name. The piece features repeating pitches and patterns that evoke drum beats. Kokopelli is inspired by the music of the Hopi Nation, and it has become a favourite in the flute repertoire.
Robert Aitken’s ‘Icicle’ glistens with crystalline microtonal trills and Assimakopoulos produces a stunning array of timbres as she sings and slides through Maggie Payne’s ‘Reflections’. Anne La Berge’s ‘Revamper’ explores tone colour and the buzzing overtones that result from singing and playing, over a repetitive, almost minimalist vamp.
The final track, Clarke’s ‘Zoom Tube’ was composed, like ‘Fish are Jumping’, on the cusp of the 21st Century. ‘Zoom Tube’ is a grooving rhythm and blues piece that employs multiphonics (two or more notes at once), breath sounds and vocal percussion effects that hint at beat-boxing. After the atmospheric air sounds of the opening, Assimakopoulos launches into the groove with more speed and energy than the composer does in his own recording of this work. While the speed means some of the details in the multiphonics are lost, Assimakopoulos’ intensity is captivating and her suspenseful rubato creates an effective and personal performance.
Bringing together the sounds and musical traditions of cultures that have fed into the Western concert flute’s repertoire, Vāyu is a showcase of contemporary flute music and sound. Assimakopoulos demonstrates her versatility as a player, drawing a wide array of effects from her instrument to create impressive performances across multiple genres of solo flute music.
Image supplied.
