Adams Low Flute Festival 🎶.

Hi everyone,

Raf de Groote …

The first exhilarating day at the Adams Flute Festival in the Netherlands started (for me) with an hour of breath anatomy with Raf de Groote (www.rafdegroote.be)  After studying with illustrious and famous flutists, he experienced a collapsed lung which inspired him to really get into the meat of the issue – our bodies!  

He has a host of toys/visual aides to help illustrate what he’s talking about:

A Frisbee was our diaphragm and a Chinese paper folding lantern represented our lungs on top of it. A pool noodle showed our ribs expanding and contracting.  The floating ribs go down in the back when they expand! He even had a part of a sternum to stick to his chest so we could see exactly where it lays.

He showed us some tricks for increasing our ability to play for longer by  inhaling very slowly so that the CO2 mechanism in our brain gets set back- Instead of telling us to breathe every few seconds, we can last much longer.  You can also do this by exhaling very slowly, but be careful not to force it at the end, since that is where he collapsed his lung.

We also tested how many breaths we take in a minute.  The results were between 5 and 20!  He said that some people took even more breaths than that per minute.  (Try it!)

Next up was Sophie Dufeutrelle …

Next up was Sophie Dufeutrelle using Sound Painting by Walter Thompson, a method in which you improvise to signals given to you by the conductor. Here is her graphic score, straight lines means a long note, dots mean tongue pizzicato and so forth:

We will apparently be performing that today at the lunch concert!

The lunch concert on Day 1

Speaking of which, the lunch concert on Day 1 started with the inimitable Gareth MacLearnon presenting his latest arrangements for flute orchestra.  My favourite was the Irish piece where he played penny whistle at the end!  He encouraged us to make videos and send them to him  😉

A Brazilian Group – Patricia Nagle and Eduardo Rosa dos Santos

This was followed by a Brazilian Group initiated by Patricia Nagle and lead by the very charming, engaging and energetic Eduardo Rosa dos Santos.  As well as other pieces, they played some very interesting arrangements of Black Orpheus and The Girl from Ipanema and as well as Chico Chico (or Tico Tico) which really brought the sun into the concert hall!

Anders Hagberg on practicing low flutes

The afternoon continued with an Anders Hagberg session on practicing low flutes as an extension of our body where we are clearly part of the resonance.  Regarding scales, he also mentioned that in India, the scales are much more than just a series of notes.  The word raga actually means “the act of coloring or adding a hue”.  In other languages they speak of opening a sacred space, so play your scales like they are divine!

Next was Tilmann Dehnhard …

Next was Tilmann Dehnhard introducing us to Beatboxing.  I already have his books, but it is so much better to get a live lesson!  Here’s a very short clip of him beatboxing to Summertime:

The afternoon concert featured Victor Somma …

The afternoon concert featured Victor Somma, composer, performer, and socially engaged flutist – on every size of flute plus electronics!  The program started off with him playing solo with a looper, which he started doing when he was working with teenagers at a psychiatric institute.  Just him and a little looper has now expanded into a much more complex system!
Later he was joined by Resonance 21 for parts of a concerto that he composed and played on the double contrabass flute from Eva Kingma.  A very inspiring performer!