Flute Force, a flute quartet based in New York City, will present a recital at the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center, Thursday, Feb. 2, at 6 p.m. in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (200A). The event is free and open to the public.
The program is called “Five for Four” and features five new quartets written for Flute Force by American composers Richard Arnest, Elizabeth Brown, Marty Regan, Joseph Schwantner and Roger Zahab.
The piece by Marty Regan, “Poem in December” is scored for Shakuhachi, two C flutes and alto flute. The Brown work is for four altos and prerecorded sound, and both the Schwanter and the Arnest works are for piccolo, flute alto and bass.
Each member of Flute Force plays all the flutes of the flute family: the piccolo, flute, alto and bass flutes, sometimes in a single concert. The group has been featured in venues throughout the United States and Canada and was a guest of the Australian Flute Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Members of Flute Force include:
Rie Schmide is a graduate of SUNY Purchase. She was also a winner of the Artists International Competition, and gave her Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1983. Schmidt is a member of the Westchester Philharmonic and the American Symphony, and has performed with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra and many Broadway shows.
Sheryl Henze is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Opera Orchestra of New York, and the Westchester Philharmonic. As a soloist, Ms. Henze has performed with such renowned orchestras as the Boston Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic (with Beverly Sills), and the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Composer/performer Elizabeth Brown, a native of Alabama, received a master’s degree in flute performance from The Juilliard School, in 1977. She started composing in the early 1980s, and since then, her music has been heard around the world, with performances in Japan, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Colombia, and Australia as well as across the United States and Europe.
Wendy Stern is a freelance musician in New York, having played in the flute sections of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and many other prestigious organizations. She has toured the United States and Canada as piccoloist of the New York City Opera National Company and flutist of the Linden Woodwind Quintet. She received her Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.
For more information, contact the College of Creative Arts at (304) 293-4359.
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CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu
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