…or in Christopher’s words, “I’ve made a huge mistake!”
Although the opening concert of this season seemed last March to be in the distant future, I wondered nevertheless how we would pull this off, given the short timeline. Christopher assured me that he was used to working with tight deadlines, and he promised I would have some material to look at sometime in June, just three months in advance of the premiere.
I’ll admit that as I considered my options, this made me a little nervous. But, what a once in a lifetime opportunity: to work with a composer I knew and to premiere his concerto as soloist with a conductor dedicated to promoting living composers and new music! In the new shell, no less!
It was a no-brainer.
I took the plunge and agreed to do it.
Christopher and I tossed a few ideas around in some animated conversations that included my critiques of contemporary flute concertos and his animated accounts of the latest DVD from Netflix that he was viewing. After we conducted the business of the commission, he got to work.
In mid-May, following the HSO’s last concert, I became very busy in my work as marketing director, preparing for the new season. At the same time, the concerto was on my mind. I increased my practice routine—but what to practice? How does one prepare for a concerto that hasn’t been written?
I had an idea from playing Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride last February that Christopher’s writing for the flute would likely push the limits in some way that I could only guess. I created a routine of difficult etudes, scales studies and work in the extreme high range of the flute. My aim was to practice two hours a day during the week and three hours a day on weekends. I did this for weeks before I saw the first phrase of music.
Around the first of July, Christopher called to say that he was attempting to email a flute part containing substantial fragments of the concerto and a music file of a recording of the fragments made by two of his fellow students at Curtis (a flutist and a pianist). I received the flute part, but the music file transfer was not successful. Christopher gave up and sent a CD by Federal Express, making me promise NOT to try out the flute part until I had heard the recording! ARGH! He was very meticulous in the way he presented this first installment to me, almost as if he were trying to sell me on the idea of composing a concerto for me!
The next day, I had the CD. I gave it a quick listen, liked what I heard, and eagerly set out to learn the solo part of the yet-to-be-completed flute concerto.