Fantasia No. 7 in D major by Georg Philipp Telemann, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute. www.marktakeshimcgregor.com

Telemann  Fantasia No. 7 In D Major, TWV 40 8

Excerpt from "invidere" for solo flute by James Beckwith Maxwell, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute. www.marktakeshimcgregor.com

Invidere Excerpt

Live performance of "Yspilon" for solo flute by Karlheainz Stockhausen

Ypsilon (excerpt) by K. Stockhausen

"Allemande" from the Partita in a minor, BWV 1013
By J. S. Bach
Performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor

"Allemande" from the Partita in a minor by J.S. Bach

Alan Turing rode his bicycle.
He rode his bicycle to work.
He rode to Bletchely Park.
Riding, the chain on his bicycle comes off.
He rode his bicycle, counting - until the chain came off. He rode his bicycle, counting.
Counting, he stopped before the chain came off.
He fixed the chain.
Riding again, counting,
he rode his bicycle to Bletchley Park. Counting.

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, computer scientist, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner. In 2012, Turing’s 1944 reports on his “speech system” Delilah, were finally pulled from the British National Archives and opened to the public. This functional machine, designed to scramble and descramble voice messages, was so far ahead of its time that it resembles the way we currently store music in digital format.

The musical construction of Delilah for solo flute was motivated by Turing’s unorthodox search for humanity or human intelligence within patterns and systems. It uses modules within a scheme of a triangular number sequences, applied to a metric grid of constant alternation between two and three. The music constantly resets, like the chain on Turing’s bicycle (one of the stories of Turing’s eccentricities related by his colleagues at Bletchley Park - headquarters of the code breaking brain-trust for Britain in WW II). It searches for answers to an unasked question, allowing this systematic approach to create subtle emotional shifts. Like Turing, it presents its puzzle playfully: in its persistence it becomes serious and then, as it begins to wallow in the process itself, lightens its mood again: a simple arc in a pattern of system, method, and discovery, it’s greatest motivation the joy of moving forward.

Delilah was commissioned by Mark Takeshi McGregor, with financial assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts

Delilah for solo flute by Michael Oesterle

Ambitus has a specific meaning for a musician — the distance between the highest and lowest notes in a composition. This Latin term for going round was originally an accusation of exerting soft power in Ancient Rome, and is the root of the English word ambition.
This dual meaning is at the heart of Ambitus. It was written in the spirit of Luciano Berio’s virtuosic Sequenza series, an ambitious endeavour for a composer. From a musical perspective, the work is an exploration of range and register, and also timbre and virtuosity.
Ambitus was composed by Toronto-based Gregory Lee Newsome, commissioned by Daniel Cooper for Mark Takeshi McGregor.

Gregory Lee Newsome: Ambitus for alto flute and Max/MSP

Live recording (June, 2016 in Vancouver, BC)of Ferneyhough's solo flute work, Carceri d'Invenzione IIb (1984). Inspired in part by the etchings of G.P. Piranesi (pictured). Performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute.

Brian Ferneyhough: Carceri d'Invenzione IIb

Nakoda for solo alto flute; composed by Ellen Lindquist, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor. 

Nakoda is named for the alpha female of the Peter Lougheed wolf pack, who was killed—legally—by a hunter in Kananaskis country (near Banff, Alberta, Canada) on September 22, 2000. While wolves and other large predators essential to the ecological balance of the region are protected within the boundaries of Banff National Park (as well as other nearby protected areas), it is sadly still legal to hunt them outside of Park boundaries. Nakoda, herself named for the Nakoda First Nations tribe of the Bow Valley (among many other areas), was first collared in 1996 with a transceiver that allowed wildlife ecologists to obtain valuable data on the pack’s wide-ranging movements over the course of the year. This kind of data can be used to help create laws that protect wolves and preserve critical habitat. Nakoda is dedicated to the conservation of large predators everywhere — in particular the wolves of the Canadian and American Rockies. — Ellen Lindquist

This recording of Nakoda is part of the Pacific Rim Recording Project, to be released by Redshift Records. Recorded May 2017. Recording technician: Jordan Nobles; Additional tech: Sheldon Zaharko

Ellen Lindquist: Nakoda

Sins & Fantasies

Telemann: Fantasia No. 10 In F# Minor, TWV 40:11

The word Tamazusa is derived from an ancient Japanese word Tama-Azusa. Azusa means birch tree. In an ancient preliterate society, there were messengers who carried canes made of birch wood. They delivered messages by word of mouth. From this, Tamazusa and Tama-Azusa came to refer to a message or letter. In addition, Tamazusa also represents karasu uri (Japanese snake gourd) whose seed resembles the shape of a knotted letter. Breathing through the embouchure hole of the piccolo and carrying a message on the music, the player of this piece becomes a messenger. So I titled this work Tamazusa. (Etsuko Hori)

Performed live by Mark Takeshi McGregor at the ISCM World New Music Days in Vancouver, 7 November 2017.

Etsuko Hori: Tamazusa for solo piccolo

Studio recording of "The Night", the first movement of Toru Takemitsu's duo for alto flute and guitar, Toward the Sea (1981). 
Mark Takeshi McGregor, alto flute; Adrian Verdejo, guitar.
Recorded 26 January 2018 at Creativ Studios, North Vancouver.
Recording engineer: Jordan Nobles

Takemitsu: Toward the Sea, "The Night"

Performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor, alto flute; Adrian Verdejo, guitar

The score for Night Rain (1978) is in a ‘mobile’ form, and, as such, the material for each of the instruments is arranged so that it can be performed in any order chosen by the performers. The work is written in three ‘movements’, and all of the material for each movement — between 8-10 short musical fragments for each performer — must be performed only once, without repeats, before both performers can proceed to the next movement. The work calls for an active interplay between the two performers, and each performance will be similar in many respects, but always differing in its details. 

The title for the work comes from an 18th century Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock print, Night Rain in the Yoshiwara, by Ippitsusai Buncho.
- Anthony Genge

Anthony Genge: Night Rain, Movement Two

Kaija Saariaho's landmark work for flute and electronics, NoaNoa (1992), performed live on 13 February 2018 by Mark Takeshi McGregor (flute) and Emilie LeBel (electronics) at the University of Montana.

The title refers to a woodcut by Paul Gauguin called NoaNoa (“Fragrant”). It also refers to a travel diary of the same name, written by Gauguin during his visit to Tahiti in 1891 - 93. The fragments of phrases selected for the voice part come from this book. - KS

Kaija Saariaho: NoaNoa for flute and electronics

Second movement (Largo) of Vivaldi's Piccolo (recorder) Concerto in C major, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor, piccolo, and Chamber Strings of the University of British Columbia, Eric Wilson, director.
Live performance, 17 March 2006, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver.

Live recording

Antonio Vivaldi: Largo from Piccolo Concerto in C major

Harakeke for solo flute (excerpt) by Philip Brownlee, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor. Available on the album "Lutalica" on Redshift Records. Download the Lutalica album for free at: redshiftrecords.org/releases/tk468/

Composer and sound artist Philip Brownlee is based in Wellington, New Zealand (Te Whanganui- a-Tara). While his recent work has focussed on improvisation, flexible musical notation, and collaborations with performers of traditional Māori music, the score for his 1999 solo flute piece, Harakeke, calls to mind the complexity works of Brian Ferneyhough. Inspired by the New Zealand flax plant (known also by its Māori word, “harakeke”), this work suggests flickering, swaying movement, and dry, rustling sounds — all set in motion by the agency of air, of wind, and, in this case, of human breath. Commissioned by flutist Bridget Douglas, the piece exploits the often unstable relationship between the flute as an acoustical system and the human gestures which activate it.

Philip Brownlee: Harakeke (excerpt)

Forever after for solo flute (excerpt) by Hope Lee, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor. Available on the album "Lutalica" on Redshift Records. Download the Lutalica album for free at: redshiftrecords.org/releases/tk468/

Hope Lee is a Chinese-Canadian composer, born in Taiwan and immigrated to Canada in 1967; she’s presently based in Calgary (Treaty 7 territory), where she composes and teaches. Her solo flute piece, forever after (2000), is based on a previous work, ...I, Laika... for flute, cello, and piano, dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father, Colonel Luke S.S. Lee, an airforce pilot who was reported missing during a mission to Laos in 1961. While...I, Laika... evokes a requiem,forever after is a song of remembrance — though not without its moments of grief or even outright anger. The work alternates between lyricism and fits of percussive angst before finally evaporating into a peaceful latticework of grace notes and whistle tones.

Hope Lee: forever after (excerpt)

Hiraeth (Migration No. 2) for solo flute (excerpt) by Emilie LeBel, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor. Available on the album "Lutalica" on Redshift Records. Download the Lutalica album for free at: redshiftrecords.org/releases/tk468/

Canadian composer Emilie LeBel hails from Toronto (Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishnabeg, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat territory) but presently teaches at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta (Treaty 6 territory). She composed Hiraeth (Migration no. 2) at the request of Mark Takeshi McGregor in 2017. LeBel states that Hiraeth is a Welsh word with no direct English translation: it means a homesickness, a nostalgia, a yearning, a grief for the lost places of one’s past. The second work in LeBel’s Migration series, Hiraeth explores a microtonal language that alternates between the intensely lyrical and the unsettlingly constricted — reflecting the traveller’s desire to be free and unfettered, all the while longing for a home to which they cannot return, or a home which maybe never was.

Emilie LeBel: Hiraeth, Migration No. 2 (excerpt)

De Mares Imaginados for solo flute (excerpt) by Pedro Alvarez, performed by Mark Takeshi McGregor. Available on the album "Lutalica" on Redshift Records. Download the Lutalica album for free at: redshiftrecords.org/releases/tk468/

Pedro Alvarez is an composer, improviser, and scholar, born in Chile and currently based in Perth, Western Australia (Whadjuk-Nyoongar country). His solo flute work, De Mares Imaginados (2009), consists of short, virtuosic statements interspersed with moments of silence, the exact durations left to the discretion of the performer. In lieu of a program note, Alvarez provides the following quote from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet (translated by Alvarez): My soul is a black maelstrom; vast vertigo around the void; movement of an endless ocean around a hole in nothingness; and in those waters that are more a turn than waters all images float of what I ever saw and heard in the world – there go houses, books, drawers, traces of music and voices’ syllables, in a sinister and bottomless swirl.

Pedro Alvarez: De Mares Imaginados (excerpt)

"The Colour of the Horse" -- the third movement of the song cycle, Four Horses. Music by Jennifer Butler; text by Peter Anderson.

Featuring Dory Hayley, soprano; Mark Takeshi McGregor, flute; Adrian Verdejo, guitar.

Performed 22 March 2019 at Sonic Boom Festival of New Music, Pyatt Hall, Vancouver, Canada.

Jennifer Butler: Four Horses, Mvt. III "The Colour of the Horse"

Described as a “mind-blowing” musician of “huge physical energy” (Times Colonist), flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor is one of Canada’s leading interpreters of classical, contemporary, and experimental music. As a soloist, chamber musician, and interdisciplinary artist, Mark has performed extensively across five continents, including appearances at Vancouver New Music Society, Little Chamber Music Series That Could, Innovations en Concert (Montreal), GroundSwell (Winnipeg), Honolulu Festival, Internationale ADEvantgarde-Festival (Munich), the Melos-Ethos Festival (Bratislava), Núcleo Música Nova’s International Symposium of New Music (Curitiba, Brazil), and the 2017 ISCM World New Music Days (Vancouver). An outspoken advocate of new music, Mark is the principal flute of the Aventa Ensemble in Victoria, flutist of the Vancouver-based Tiresias Duo with pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, and flutist of the McGregor-Verdejo Duo with guitarist Adrian Verdejo. McGregor has given many local and world premieres, and considers the commissioning of new works by contemporary composers to be a cornerstone of his work as a musician.

Mark Takeshi McGregor

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