William Adams, flutes
UCLA Philharmonia
Neal Stulberg, conductor
May 4, 2025
Royce Hall; UCLA

Performance sponsored by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at UCLA.

VOICES

Concerto for Flautist with Orchestra (1999-2000)

Commissioned by the National Flute Association

for its year 2000 annual convention

Premiere: August 19, 2000

National Flute Association Convention

Patricia Spencer, solo flautist

Columbus Symphony

Ransom Wilson, conductor

Duration: c. 17’

My having been commissioned by the National Flute Association for a flute concerto in celebration of that organization’s year 2000 convention was, for me, a much-relished opportunity to further explore the direction I found myself pursuing in two earlier compositions – EAST WIND for solo flute (1987), and MIRAGE for five instrument (1991) – in the context of the larger and fuller palette of a concerto.

Even though I had used the flute often, in various settings, in my past music, it was in EAST WIND and MIRAGE where I felt myself developing a more personal, distinct “flute voice.” And it is that voice, interspersing sensuousness, lyricism, brilliance, gentleness, and ecstasy, which I tried to bring to the fore in VOICES, subtitled “a Concerto for Flautist with Orchestra.”

The work’s first movement, Quasi Passacaglia, features the C flute as soloist. In it, the flute soloist and the orchestra each have their own theme which is loosely treated in the manner of a passacaglia. The flute theme, expressive and somewhat ornate, opens the piece solo, followed by the principal orchestral theme, initially rather dark and somber. Both themes share the minor second interval of F-G flat as a main motivic cell, and both develop gradually, through ever-expanding cycles, into a major climax, dissolving without a break into the second movement, titled Voice of the Wood. Here the soloist plays the alto flute and emphasis is given to various other solo lines, especially woodwinds. The movement closes with the alto flute, accompanied by bassoon, bringing back a more elaborate, much embellished version of the concerto’s opening theme. In the third movement, Big Bands, Little Bands, the C flute returns, though this time in the context of a fuller orchestral flute section, segueing at mid-point into the brilliant flourishes of a solo piccolo. As the name implies, parades and bands are at the heart of the music. My goal was to recreate a spectator’s experience of being anchored in one spot, observing the almost cyclical nature of a parade in motion. From drums to woodwinds, piccolos then bells, and now the brass, a recurring sequence, yet with the music changing. (A different “take,” I might add, than that of Charles Ives in some of his band-inspired moments.) A written cadenza for the piccolo with the two orchestral flutes appears near the end. And although I have used the piccolo in a variety of ways in other music, in this work I aimed unabashedly to display the piccolo at its most joyous, quintessential self, as the soloist, playing flourishes and trills, soars above the orchestra as only the piccolo can, eventually disappearing into the distance.

It has been my wonderful fortune to have some extraordinary flautists perform this work over time. The premiere of VOICES took place on August 19, 2000, with Patricia Spencer, flutist, and Ransom Wilson, conductor. Mary Stolper gave the Chicago premiere with Cliff Colnot conducting the DePaul University Orchestra on February 6, 2002.

—Shulamit Ran

I. Quasi Passacaglia

II. Voice of the Wood

III. Big Bands, Little Bands

Voices is published by Theodore Presser Company.