On November 10, 1985, I gave a concert in the Chiesa di San Rocco, Pitigliano, Italy, with Kees Boeke (viola da gamba) and Caroline Boersma (violoncello). It was on the eve of my departure from Italy to Australia after two incredible years away. The year before, December 9, 1984, I gave a solo recital at San Rocco (Virgiliano, van Eyck, Telemann, Bach). It was freezing cold inside the church (about 3°C). Here I draw loosely on some aspects of Luciano Berio’s Gesti, which I studied with Kees. This includes rhythmic, repetitive finger patterns and simultaneously independent tonguing and blowing techniques. The finger holes of the Ganassi recorder are larger than baroque style recorders and perfect for percussive finger tapping exploitation.
• Ganassi Recorder in g’ (A466)

San Rocco, Pitigliano

The Carmelite Monastery, Kew (Melbourne, Australia) has a wonderful, rich resonance. I recorded and also performed in a concert here on my voice flute in about 2005. 
• Voice Flute in d' (A415)

Carmelite Monastery, Kew

The 1999 premiere of my solo piece for bass recorder Xanthorrhoea (Grass Tree) was held in a modest hall (Scotsdale Hall?) in Denmark, Western Australia. It was inspired by a walk through a remnant patch of Marri (red gum) and huge old Grass Trees on a farm at Mount Barker, near Albany, in the stunningly beautiful far south west of WA. Here I use the same scale/mode of Xanthorrhoea and musically draw on themes and techniques of that piece.
• Alto Recorder in e-flat' (A415)

Small Hall, Denmark

Brief jazzy groove in memory of many lovely gigs at Melbourne’s Boîte world music venue, Mark Street Hall, North Fitzroy (Melbourne, Australia). It’s a warm and friendly Scout Hall with modest acoustics and a very big heart and soul. 
• Alto recorder in f' at A415 pitch.

Boîte, North Fitzroy

St Margaret's Church Hall, Pitt Street, Eltham (Melbourne, Australia) is a superb mud-brick and red gum post, polished timber floor venue where I have given many concerts. Memorably, in the campaign to protect Tasmania’s Franklin River wilderness, I organised a very successful fundraising concert in 1983, Baroque Against Vandalism.
• Härjedalspipa (Swedish folk flute) in e' (A440)

St Margarets, Eltham

In June 2016 I improvised, using a plastic ‘backpack’ soprano recorder, on the rickety timbers of a lovely little summer stage in the old park, Lappeenranta, Finland. Other than my travelling friend, Jeanne, the only audience was a myriad of chattering chaffinches.
• Rosenborg Soprano Recorder in c'' (A466)

Summer Stage, Lappeenranta

In 2010 I was privileged to tour from Cairns to Townsville, teaching, performing and exploring the extraordinary landscape and environment of North Queensland, including rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. It culminated in a concert of Australian original contemporary music, A Breath of Fresh Air (with Townsville musician Malcolm Tattersall and others) in the warm resonances of St Joseph's, The Strand, Townsville. It was very humid. Here I draw on techniques and musical ideas from my bass solo, Leviathan, performed that evening. Leviathan responded to a poem by WA poet, Alan Alexander, regarding a stranding of pilot whales at Augusta, WA.
• Bass (Basset) Recorder in F (A440)

St Josephs, Townsville

I tutored and performed at the Orpheus Music Festival 'Call of the Four Winds', Armidale NSW (2000). One of my student tutorial groups performed a piece of mine, Pebbles; a very minimalist, hypnotic and repetitive small recorder ensemble composition that imitates pebbles falling into running water. It began in the gymnasium, but then students paraded, always playing, from the gymnasium to the swimming pool, audience following. They filed into the shallow end of the pool and slowly began to walk from that end towards the deeper end. As the plastic recorders, still being played, began to dip into the water, they inadvertently produced fascinating glissandi and effects, not unlike a slide whistle. At the end, the students ‘disappeared’, recorder and all, under water. My improvisation in this fantasia refers at times thematically to Pebbles and actually uses a real (analog) bucket of water to partly submerge my plastic recorder while recording.
• Alto Recorder (plastic) in f' (A440), bucket of water
Original video at: https://youtu.be/n8m_6tZlMYs

Swimming Pool, Armidale

I was born and raised in Bendigo (Victoria, Australia). As a teenager in the mid-1970s, I heard David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London, and also the Alban Berg String Quartet of Vienna, perform at the Bendigo Town Hall. As a 15-year-old, I played in a classical guitar Eisteddfod here and famously tripped onto the stage, my guitar sliding precariously across the polished wooden floor – not a good start! In 2010 I played recorder (van Eyck and original compositions) at the well-attended life celebration of my inspiring music teacher, Edmund Beilharz.
• Månmarkapipa (Swedish folk flute) in a' (A440)

Town Hall, Bendigo

At the Ballarat Festival of Slow Music (2014) with sculptor Paul Blizzard, I performed in the Minerva Space at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute (Victoria, Australia). Our collaboration, Dancing the Chisel (45 mins), involved improvised musical responses on various recorders to on-stage stone and metal work sequences. The piece finished with some long, pure Ganassi recorder notes, to reflect upon the beautiful, rustic ‘carousel’ structure built on stage by Paul. This improvised fantasia very loosely relates to the tonal and spatial ambience of the final part of Dancing the Chisel.
• Ganassi Alto Recorder in g' (A415) 
Excerpts from 2014 Ballarat Festival of Slow Music concert Dancing the Chisel: https://vimeo.com/113781071?fbclid=IwAR0MwWLbeM7Z9TcUjomwa9K50lX1h4E6Y1g6wRW4XACqnogqHEYeZTz6lE8

Mechanics Institute, Ballarat

I love playing the recorder in beautiful and diverse acoustic environments, with or without an audience. I like to explore the subtle relationships between body, soul, breath, instrument, sound, silence and space.

Rodney Waterman

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