News
On occasion we like to share updates on the events of our grantees.
May 2019
Pictures from our 2019 Performance.
February 20, 2019
October 17, 2018
Victoria Santospago was a Friends of Flutes Foundation grantee for a 2018 summer program. She recently won a “flute position in the US Navy Fleet Bands”, as announced by the Navy Bands. She will be attending the Naval School of Music in Virginia, which prepares musicians for participation in the Navy Bands. Victoria has Masters Degree in Flute Performance and an Artists Diploma from New York University and a Bachelors Degree in Flute Performance and Music Education from the University of New Hampshire.
April 19, 2018
On April 16, 2018, Giorgio Consolati, a grantee of FFF, performed the Rouse Flute Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Alan Gilbert. The concert was held at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. The above photo is of Alan Gilbert, Christopher Rouse and Giorgio Consolati with the Juilliard Orchestra.
March 13, 2018
Here are pictures from our annual concert, held on February 11, 2018.
February 22, 2018
Friends of Flutes Foundation held its annual concert to thank its donors on February 11, 2018. The Theme “Bold and New Flute Music” featured music composed in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Seven of the FFF Grantees performed, followed by the High-Lows, an amateur Flute Ensemble led by Board Member and Music Director for FFF, Mary Barto.
Below is the Program for the concert.
February 2, 2018
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Michelle Stockman performed “Isles of Shoals” by Michael Colina, a flute concerto, with The Chelsea Symphony. Her performance at St. Paul’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church in New York City on January 27, 2018 was made possible by a grant from the Friends of Flutes Foundation.
October 31, 2017
EMISSARY QUARTET: OFF THE MAP
Contemporary flute ensemble Emissary Quartet (one of FFF’s grantees in 2015) performs “Off the Map,” a concert featuring winning compositions from their international Call for Scores competition, on Saturday, Nov. 11, at 7:30pm at the Norman S. Benzaquen Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street, New York, NY. The program features two world premieres and one American premiere of works for four flutes by Kai-Young Chan (based in Hong Kong), Karina Baras (Russia), and Sung-Hyun Yun (South Korea). The winning works were among 190 total submissions to Emissary Quartet’s Call for Scores competition, which drew from composers from North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
July 2017
Miranda Finn with the Sankyo Prima Etude silver flute, which she won in the Friends of Flutes Foundation Competition for a Flute.
The Flute was donated to FFF by a private donor.
Miranda Finn.
Krisztina Der will be completing her Doctorate at University of North Carolina, Greensboro in May 2017. Her dissertation, “And Then There was Light: Lighting Art in Flute Repertoire” includes videos, one of which we are sharing here. FFF helped with her dissertation expenses.
At Daybreak from Wayne Reich on Vimeo.
Friends of Flutes Foundation held its annual Event to thank its supporters on February 12, 2017. The theme was “Romance and the Flute” with the music being performed by six grantees mostly from the New York area. Over 65 people attended the concert of music from the “Romantic” period and a bit of jazz flute (along with piano and drum) at the end.
Joseph Monticello performed at Juilliard on March 23, 2016 in partial fulfillment of his Master of Music Degree.
Program (Click to view larger in PDF) |
Joseph on baroque flute, with Keiran Campbell, cello, and Robert Warner, Harpsichord |
Joseph on a modern flute with Re Zhang on piano |
Below is the program for the IN RADIANCE Flute Quintet performance that took place this past February in Boston. Friends of Flutes Foundation helped with their expenses and a loan of FFF’s Alto Flute.
Friends of Flutes Foundation held a 260th Birthday Party for W. A. Mozart. Several of the FFF grantees played pieces by Mozart for an audience of over 50 donors to FFF. Mary Barto, flutist and member of the FFF Board of Directors, and pianist , Linda Mark, also played a piece composed by grantee, Nadine Dyskant-Miller, to conclude the Concert.
Invitation to Mozart’s 260th Birthday Party |
Mozart’s Birthday Cake |
Grantee Joseph Monticello from Juilliard, together with Nayeon Kim, violin, Toma Iliev, viola, and Alexander Nicholls, cello, also from Juilliard and all playing on period instruments. |
Grantee Denis Savelyev from Mannes School of Music. |
Grantees Leanna Ginsburg and Daniela Volkovinsky from SUNY Purchase. |
Grantee Coreisa Lee from Manhattan School of Music, together with Rose Xiu Kow, violin, Jeremy Laureta, viola, and Camille Dietrich, cello, also from Manhattan School of Music. |
FFF received a donation of a Sankyo Silver Flute from a private donor, Joshua Popenoe.
The Flute has been repaired and is available to a grantee who may need a flute for up to a year.
Josh Popenoe with the Silver Flute.
Josh is a specialist in Foreign-Accent Reduction and no longer plays the flute.
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Emissary Quartet: Sarah Shin, Weronika Balewski, Nicole Pelonzi, and Rebecca Chapman.
FFF has helped keep this quartet together.
Joseph LaRocca (an FFF grantee) from Northern Illinois University invites all to listen to his recital on October 6th at 6:30pm using this link to the live webcast: http://www.niu.edu/Music/media/webcasts/index.shtml
He will be playing the following:
Image – Eugene Bozza
Air – Toru Takemitsu
The Garden of Love – JacobTV
-Intermission-
Tocatta and Fugue – J.S. Bach arranged by Salvatore Sciarrino
Vermont Counterpoint – Steve Reich
Board member, Mary Barto, with Julian Rose from The New York Flute Center, at the National Flute Convention held in Washington, D. C. in August, 2015.
The Flute Center has generously donated an Alto Flute and a Piccolo to Friends of Flutes Foundation. These instrument are available for loans to FFF grantees.
Friends of Flutes Foundation has received generous contributions from Alphawood Foundation in Chicago. Their funds have significantly helped FFF to continue to give grants to aspiring flutists. Alphawood was also a major donor for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt island, N.Y.
Here are some pictures from an event at the Park attended by Mary Barto and Judith Thoyer, Board members of FFF.
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The Flute Center has contributed a beautiful new Piccolo to FFF as noted on our homepage.
Here is Board member, Mary Barto, holding the Piccolo, together with Phil Unger, owner of The Flute Center.
The Piccolo will be loaned out as needed to students.
Below is a picture of The Flute Center’s new place of business in New York City, together with a picture of Phil Unger and his colleague repairing a flute.
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Cherokee Bunn, a senior Flute Performance major at Hunter College in New York, is a summer Intern for FFF. She has researched foundations for future funding for FFF as well as helped design the FFF Benefit to be held in January, 2016. As part of her internship, she also participated in the Mannes Extension Division Summer Flute Ensemble. Cherokee was one of the FFF grantees in 2014. She is shown below in Judith Thoyer’s law office (also the FFF office) next to a poster showing Frederick the Great playing the flute and in front of the famous Chagall poster for The Magic Flute.
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Our grantee, Louna Dekker-Vargas, is performing on May 23, 2015 at the Historic Manhattan Seventh-Day Adventist Church in support of
REACH-NYC.
In the next couple of months, REACH-NYC will continue to produce “Concerts for Peace,” each one featuring great musicians while at the same time providing opportunity to support local community groups in the metropolitan NYC area, partnering to help bring compassion to those in need.
One of the upcoming “Concerts for Peace” will be May 23, 2015 at 7:45 pm. A young talented team of musicians will be performing classical and modern pieces on guitar and flute. The group, known as “Green Moon,” will be the featured talent. Isaac Greene, guitar, and Louna Dekker-Vargas, flute, will bring exciting music to Historic Manhattan Seventh-day Adventist Church and again, all donations will go towards a local non-profit community group.
The picture is Mary Barto, Board member and flute professor, and Eduardo Castillo, grantee.
Eduardo is graduating with a BM in Music Education from NYU/Steinhardt. He is a multi-instrumentalist and studies flute and piccolo with Kathleen Nester. Eduardo is one of FFF’s first grantees: FFF purchased a piccolo for him and then 3 years later funded his Senior Recital.
His program included works by Bach, Ian Clarke, Dutilleux, Hoover and Christensen, as well as “Zelda: Four flutes Medley” by Koji Kondo and arranged by Eduardo. The program thanked all who contributed to his success, including FFF.
Two of the FFF grantees were winners at the New York Flute Club Flute Fair held on March 15, 2015 :
Julie Lee was Second Prize Winner in the NYFC Competition. Accompanied by pianist Soyeon Kim, Julie played Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Sinfonische Kanzone, Op. 114 (her choice) and Albert Roussel: “Pan” from Jours de flute, Op. 27 (required piece, played on first round). Julie is currently studying for a Master of Music degree in Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, after pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at Mannes College of Music in New York City.
Nadine Dyskant-Miller was Third Prize Winner in the NYFC Composition Competition. Her piece, “They Move with No One Watching: Dances” was premiered aby the NYFC Fair with Nadine on flute and Margaret Kampmeier on piano. Nadine is a Senior at the University of Michigan.
FFF was honored to have a concert by Carol Wincenc (flute) and Gena Raps (piano) on February 1, 2015 at the home of Board members Judith and Michael Thoyer. Carol and Gena donated the concert , which was attended by over 50 supporters of FFF (notwithstanding it was Superbowl Sunday). They played pieces by Chaminade, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Uebayashi, among others, and the famous Doppler for two flutes and piano in which Carol was joined by Board member, Mary Barto.
Some pictures from the event:
Carol Wincenc, Gena Raps, Judith Thoyer
Carol Wincenc
Phil Unger , New York Flute Center
“From Theory to Practice: An Analytical Performance Guide for Flutists”, by Timothy Hagen, is (in his words) a “hybrid between guide and workbook” about some of the great orchestral flute parts by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Debussy and Strauss.
Tim has a DMA from the University of Texas and is a flutist, composer and educator. Friends of Flutes Foundation helped fund the costs of producing the book.
It will be available through http://www.timothyhagen.com/publications.html.
Louna Dekker-Vargas, one of the FFF grantees,
together with members of the FFF Board, Judith Thoyer and Mary Barto.
Louna played two masterpieces of the French flute repertoire by Debussy and Messiaen. The concert also included pianist Constance Kaita and Soprano Beth Griffith. It was held on August, 30, 2014 in the 1881 Landmark Sanctuary of the Historical Manhattan Seventh Day Adventist Church on West 11th Street. Louna is studying with Marina Piccinini at Peabody Conservatory. Her FFF grant was to study French flute music at the Academie International de Nice during the past summer.
Mary Barto, member of the Board, is a quarter finalist for the Music Educator Award presented by The Recording Academy ® and The Grammy Foundation®. The final award will be presented during Grammy ® Week 2015.
FFF held a benefit on March 31, 2014 to thank its many contributors.
Four wonderful and varied trios were played by FFF grantees and the professors who recommended them as future professional flutists.
Below you can see our program and photos of the performers and some of our guests.
Professor Keith Underwood (Mannes College of Music) and Wendy Stern, President of the New York Flute Club.
Eduardo Castillo, an FFF grantee, and his Professor at NYU, Kathleen Nester, on piccolos, with Evan Solomon on the piano playing Nachtigal und Drossel by Henryk Kling.
Nicholas Duchamp, flute teacher and performer (guest at the benefit).
Professor Linda Chesis (Manhattan School of Music) and her student, Coreisa Lee, on flutes, with Evan Solomon on the piano, playing Three Dances for Two Flutes and Piano by Gary Schocker.
Jo Brand, an FFF grantee, and her Professor, Sandy Miller (Juilliard), on baroque flutes, with Martha McGaughey on Viola da Gamba, playing Franz Joseph Haydn, Trio No. 1.
Julie Lee, an FFF grantee, and her Professor, Keith Underwood (Mannes College of Music), on flutes with Young Park on cello, playing Franz Joseph Haydn Trio No. 3.
Mary Barto, an Associate Professor at Mannes College, the New School for Music, Columbia University, Fordham University and Hunter College-CUNY and a former member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, is a member of the Board of Directors of FFF and she organized the entire benefit program.
the Flute Center Endowed
Alto Flute.
The Flute Center of New York, located at 1841 Broadway in New York City, donated a new Trevor James Alto flute to Friends of Flutes Foundation. Named the “Flute Center Endowed Alto Flute”, it will be loaned on a yearly or shorter basis over the next few years to grantees of FFF who have need of an Alto Flute.
The first user of the Flute Center Endowed Alto Flute is Christopher Matthews, one of the FFF prior grantees now studying for his Doctorate in Flute Performance at SUNY Stony Brook with Carol Wincenc. Chris is also Executive Director/Co-Founder of a new Los Angeles-based contemporary octet called DC8, an in-house ensemble of the Da Camera Society-Presenter of Chamber Music in Historic Sites. The Alto Flute will be used in a concert on May 9, 2014. Two pieces commissioned for the group by composers William Harvey and Nina Senk feature the alto flute.
FFF thanks Phil Unger, owner of Flute Center of New York, for this generous contribution to FFF.
Gloria Yun, one of our grantees, is now continuing her post-graduate flute studies at the DePaul School of Music She is a member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra and one of her activities is participation in MusiCorps, Civic’s educational outreach program. She and her woodwind quintet have visited several schools in underprivileged neighborhoods to perform a musical presentation that teaches students how music moves people (e.g. emotionally, between different voices, dance). The quintet also performs free community concerts in venues all over Chicago.
Eduardo Castillo, a 2013 grantee, will be playing the piccolo purchased for him by the Friends of Flutes Foundation at the following event:
The NYU Community Orchestra’s Spring Concert
Wednesday, May 7th at 8pm
Frederick Loewe Theater
35 West 4th Street
New York, NY
Mary Barto, Eduardo Castillo, Judith Thoyer
Board members, Mary Barto (left) and Judith Thoyer (right) attended a concert
of the NYU Orchestra at which grantee, Eduardo Castillo (in the middle)
played the piccolo purchased for him by Friends of Flutes Foundation.