A piece for solo flute with reverb/looper/trails.  This piece uses a variety of extended techniques such as whistle tones, singing and playing, and air sounds.  May the birds and wind be with you on this strange and difficult journey!

Crossing Yam Suph

“A song for dusk unfolding” is a work for standard open-hole flute, that makes extensive use of the special technique of multiphonics.  To achieve the desired result, the multiphonics should be tuned to one another, and the pitches that form the multiphonics should be vivid and salient.  

performed by flutist Bonnie McAlvin

A Song Of Dusk Unfolding, For Solo Flute By Bonnie McAlvin

Evensong was written in the fall of 2014 for Bonnie McAlvin, Emily Vold, and Manon Hutton-DeWys. The work was a bit of a stretch for me in a number of ways. Bonnie’s speciality is multiphonics, where two or more pitches are produced simultaneously on the flute. Not a flutist myself, I had very little knowledge about that technique, so it was a great opportunity to learn more. Eventually, I combined some sketches I had written for Bonnie with some for an earlier, abandoned work to create the melodic and harmonic material for the piece.

Early in the compositional process, though, an image appeared in my head of the three players surrounding the piano, dipping their hands to the strings in choreographed motions and producing mysterious and ethereal noises. This became the literal starting point of the piece, and the work as a whole represents a gradual move from that abstract sound world focused on timbre into the more familiar realms dominated by pitch and rhythm.

Purchase Sheet Music

Evensong

Serenity By Chris Covias

03. Urgent – Original Composition By Bonnie McAlvin

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.  
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!--
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad Bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

Wanting to Die
Anne Sexton

Sounds After the Oil War

Carelessly Open, Something Unsaid, the Phone off the Hook

Final scene (selections), My First Kiss and the People Involved

with Gregory K. Williams, Viola and Marta Bedkowska-Reilly, cello

Growth

From the premiere:  "Conversation", the second movement of Sandstone Peak (2017), performed by Mélomanie at the Delaware Contemporary

Kimberly Reighley, Flute
Christof Richter, Violin
Donna Fournier, Viola de gamba
Naomi Gray, Cello
Tracy Richardson, Harpsichord

II.  Conversation, from Sandstone Peak (2017)

Little Christmas uses the special technique of flute multiphonics--when a flutist plays more than one note at once.  The piece pushes the boundaries of this technique in order to achieve the sense of humility and joy that comes with honest gift-giving, and to evoke a sense of connection through shared light and darkness.

Sheet music and fingerings will be available mid-March.  You can check in (or subscribe) at www.bonniemcalvin.net to get updates.

Little Christmas, for solo multiphonic flute

Flutist-composer Bonnie McAlvin is captivated by multiphonics.  She was winner of the National Flute Association’s national convention performer competition and is known for her rare ability to play multiphonics—a technique somewhat akin to playing double-stops on a string instrument. Her 2015 video release, “Parallel Transformations” drew international attention for its use of multiphonics in a completely tonal context, and she is featured on the list of famous flutists of All About Flute.
 
Her recent film score, “My First Kiss and the People Involved” recently premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where it was the top pick of the festival for the LA Daily News; the score received a grade of ‘excellent’ from The Hollywood Reporter.  
​
Other recent commissions include Sandstone Peak, a work for the provocative pairings series of the Delaware-based chamber ensemble Melonamie, and Cherry Blossom, a solo flute work commissioned for a 2017 tour of Japan. Her works have been performed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra, members of the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and world ragtime-piano champion William McNally.  Upcoming premieres include a work for the Chamber Orchestra of the Hamptons, Overlooking Hither Hills, a work for flute choir called "Flute Kids", and a work-in-progress for flute and piano called "And the joy will burn out the pain".

A Song Of Dusk Unfolding, For Solo Flute By Bonnie McAlvin

Bonnie McAlvin, Flutist, Composer

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Deborah Podolka

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