This month, the digital album ‘Ashes to Impulse’ was released. The album features compositions by American composer Gregory Glancey. I had the honor of performing one of the pieces together with pianist Paolo Gorini.
It happens quite often that composers reach out to me through the Flute Colors website. Sometimes, they send their music to as many flutists as possible, hoping someone will perform their work. Other times, composers come to Flute Colors to learn more about extended techniques. And sometimes, a beautiful collaboration arises.
That’s exactly what happened with Greg Glancey. He contacted me through the website to get more information about the techniques. He sent me one of his works and asked for advice. At some point, Greg suggested writing a piece for me. Of course, I always say ‘yes, please!’ to that. It’s exciting to work on new, unfamiliar music, especially when you have the opportunity to collaborate with the composer.
It took some time, but I finally received the first version of the piece. It was quite daunting, it looked very challenging. However, I’ve played difficult pieces before and I know that I need to stay calm and search for patterns, zoom in on the music, and thoroughly examine it piece by piece. The piece consists of three parts. The first part is for flute solo, and the other parts are performed with a prepared piano. To play this piece well, clips need to be placed on certain strings of the piano. These are extended techniques for the piano. The result is amazing and adds an extra dimension to the sound of the piano, often creating a percussive effect on the prepared strings.
The title of the piece became ‘Effervesce’. Greg himself says the following about the piece: ‘This piece is inspired by my passion for fermenting food. It’s fun to make your own yogurt, for example. When you make yogurt, a chemical reaction takes place. There are live bacteria that grow and feed on different things in the substance and turn it into something new, like yogurt. This piece is meant to evoke those images. These chemical reactions and also a bubbling, which lets you know that you have yogurt. It’s the carbon dioxide that rises to the surface in the form of bubbles, and this is called effervescence.
My pieces also have deeply emotional expressive qualities. I’m a father, I have two daughters. They both play piano. One of them also plays cello. When I go to their recitals. They’re just getting into performing. As a parent you just get overwhelmed with emotion. The expression would be: you effervesce with pride when you watch your child. And it comes from within, it comes out. And so the musical material of this piece is meant to avoke throughout the piece a struggle, an inability to express like it is always getting cut off. And the the effervesce is where it finaly reaches a climax and fulfilment’.
If you like more information about the album or if you want to listen to the pieces, please visit
