Peter’s Piccolo Party!

After my accidental pilgrimage to a sacred site in Brugge (see previous newsletter, or my Blog), I spent a weekend full of wonder with Piccolo Master Peter Verhoyen.  His teaching techniques are not only extremely well illustrated and explained (be sure to see his books) but he includes the listeners in the masterclass by asking us questions and our opinions!  For example, we each drew our concept of vibrato and discussed that together.  What this means is that you are not just a passive participant but an active learner.  And of course, Peter is extremely amusing!  (Note the mice jumping on a trampoline on the cover of Book 2 !)

In the family style, Peter’s son and accompanist wrote and illustrated an amusing little book about the life of an accompanist.  Basically, they do an amazing job of playing orchestral reductions and difficult piano parts at top speed for all the instrumentalists but are almost always in the background !

We also had a wonderful class of piccolo yoga lead by Rena Urso to start off our last day.  It was packed!   She also gave a class on body mapping which goes with her new book “Mindful Flute Etudes.”

There were a lot of new works performed, and many had the composers present!  This particular piece, by Rei Munakata and played by Mar Sala Romagosa, had extra “instruments” that all fit into a carry on bag:

Below are Peter and Rei talking to the audience about his piece “YU”.  That’s Peter’s daughter in background operating the camera and video.  She is also an illustrator of Peter’s Piccolo books and a harpist.

The crowning event of the 3 days was Peter’s Piccolo Polka Party!  This was enjoyed immensely by everyone, especially Peter who had a blast dancing, as did we all!  Lots of laughter!!!!  (Click on the image below for the video.)

The evening continued with a marvelous performance from “Les Kickeuses”.  The flutist Juliette Ferreira, having already impressed us with her performance of the contemporary work “Pièce” by Fanny Libert, was now singing and playing folk music with her accordionist by memory!  

I had a wonderful piccolo lesson with Pamela Stahel (former piccolo in the hilharmonia Zurich) and a fantastic one with Peter himself !

We had workshops, warm-ups and wall to wall wizardry !
I’ll tell you more about it in my next newsletter.

Unti then, I remain
yours in the high octaves,
Nandin

P.S. If you know of anyone who would like to get my Newsletter, thanks for sharing!
Here’s the link:

Copyright (C) 2025 Nandin Music. All rights reserved.