The British Flute Society
President William Bennett OBE Vice President Atarah Ben-Tovim
Vice President Emeritus Sheena Gordon Honorary Patrons Sir james Galway
and Lady jeanne Galway Chairperson Carole jenner-Timms
The Journal of the British Flute Society
Volume 33 Number 4 December 20 14
Editor Elisabeth Hobbs [email protected]
Contacting the BFS
Secretary and Advertising Anna Munks
27 Eskdale Gardens Purley, Surrey CR8 I ET
Telephone and fax 020 8668 3360 [email protected]
Membership Secretary N icola Thompson 48 Wistow Road
Selby Y08 3LY Telephone 0845 680 1983 [email protected]
Editorial Committee Carole jenner-Timms
Alastair Learmont Anna Munks
Niall O'Riordan
Design and layout Elisabeth Hobbs Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Rowan
Cover image Wm. S. Haynes & Co. Printed by Lavenham Press
Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect an
official view of the British Flute Society. All copyrights reserved.
Registered charity No. 326473 ISSN 2052-6814
The Council and Officers of t he British Flute Society
Chairperson Carole jenner-Timms
Vice Chairperson
Malcolm Pollock Treasurer
Catriona Crosby Area Representative Co-ordinator
Kate Cuzner Council Members
jocelyn Campbell; Kate Hill; Anne Hodgson; Lisa Nelsen; Niall O'Riordan;
Sally Quantrill; Rachel Smith AFT Representative
Hugh Phillips Membership Secretary
Nicola Thompson Legal Advisor
A lastair Learmont BFS Secretary and Advertising Manager
Anna Munks Edi tor
Elisabeth Hobbs
Full contact details (or all council members
and o((1cers are available (rom the secretary.
Area Representatives
Avon & Somerset Carole jenner-Timms 0 176 1 233982
Birmingham Ma~aret Lowe 0121 474 3549 Cardiff justine Swainson 029 2075 1313
Cheshire Dawn Savell 0 1925 416647 Cumbria Suzanne de Lozey 01539 560054
Derry/N I Sarah Murphy 0781 I I 07065 Devon (West) & Cornwall (East)
Kym Burton 0 1837 861 I 38 East Sussex Anne Hodgson 0 1273 8 12580
Hertford Sally Quantrill 01992 536236 Hertfordshire Wendy Walshe 01707 261573
Hertfordshire (Hitchin) Liz Childs 0771 I
080275 Isle ofWight Louis Henry 01983 531868
Kent Pat Daniels 01732 770141 Lancash1re Mark Parkinson 01257 410856
Lancashire (Preston) jane Pembleton-Smyth
01772 864587 Leicestersh1re Elizabeth Rowan 0 I 16 2514595 London E & Essex Kate Cuzner 0 1787 273628
NW London joss Campbell 07930 093564 Oxfordsh1re Kate Hill 0 1491 641212
Scotland Marysia Williamson 0 ISO I 762 510 Shropshire C§ire'Hennie 0 1948 780 I 49 Southampton/Hants Sarah Heard 07779
9276 13 Surrey jacqueline Cox 020 8773 04 36 Swansea Hugh Phillips 01792 865825
West Yorkshire Tracey Smurthwaite 0 1924
21 1538
INTERNATIONAL Austraha (VIC) Paula Rae +61 3 9882 6888
Australia (NSW) Derek Galloway +61 4 50045753
France Atarah Ben-Tovim + 33 5574 74428 Italy GeoffWarren + 39 85 4159865
Muscat, Oman Nicholas Foster +968 95203966 N ew Zealand Marion Titmuss +64 75520794
Qatar Pat Smith +974 4678121
Letters Write to [email protected]
A fabulous convent ion Fluting and Friends was truly the theme of the Convention
in August. It was joyful, friendly, imaginative - a sharing Convention where egos were sublimated to the music. A rare thing at Conventions!
My highlights were: the beautiful playing of the renasissance quartet (the Modena Consort), Samantha Chang's perfectly prepared lecture on Briccialdi with Niall performing, dressed and playing as the Italian Maestro, and Wibb and Trevor's immaculate playing in their Celebration concert. They showed us just how to do it! Finally, there was the last, crazy concert from contras to piccs, with fluting friends from all over the world making music together and having fun.
Thanks Carla, for a fabulous convention!
Atarah Ben-Tovim
Do competit ions reinforce inequality? I am writing to reply to the latest of Atarah's stimulating
letters to PAN (September 2014 issue), in which she draws attention to the fact that a recent flute competition jury consisted entirely of men. What do we think about this, she asks?
I am old enough to remember a time when there were no professional women flautists - with occasional notable exceptions like Atarah herself, who was pointed out to me as unusual, by my (male) flute teacher, when she (Atarah) was Principal Flute with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Some orchestras continued to be all male, until they were forced by the equal opportunities legislation of the 1970s to stop being exclusive. Unfortunately, in my teaching career, I have noticed the phenomenon that, now numbers of women have become professional musicians, it begins to be seen as a 'feminine' pursuit, and some boys and men decide they don't want to be with 'a load of girls'. As a result, we (society) notice the few who do play and give them extra encouragement -otherwise, we might end up with all female orchestras!
Another complication is built in by the fact that some people are not very keen on competitions per se, and it might be argued that there is an overlap of gender characteristics with this issue, so as to make it more likely that men will accept invitations to be on competition juries, and women may •be perceived as less enthusiastic about defining 'winners' and 'losers: This touches on the wider debate about the feminist movement as a whole, where it is often difficult for individual women and men to sort out exactly what equality means. For instance, as a pacifist, I don't want to see women in the armed forces; but this doesn't mean I approve of inequality of opportunity, and, for that matter, it doesn't mean I am never irritable and combative when coping with everyday challenges.
4 bfs.org.uk
The Editor, PAN The Dairy
Toot Baldon OXFORD
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Sadly, human beings seem to like or to find it natural to divide things and to create barriers between people: men against women, rich against poor, incomers against natives, professionals against amateurs. To my mind, competitions are about separating a few successful performers from the unsuccessful generality, as a way of justifying and maintaining the inequalities in our society as a whole. This forcing of a few to the top is bound to exclude more women than men, though non-conformist men will suffer, too. Just think about how few women composers and conductors are being given a hearing, still - even though, thanks largely to pioneers like Atarah, the situation has changed for instrumentalists.
It has often been observed that ability and success are a matter of confidence - if people are given the resources they need they will perform better and believe they have a future; but as soon as they are written off as inferior or redundant they start behaving and believing accordingly. So let's stop making strict and meaningless divisions of all kinds, and adopt a philosophy about the future of music similar to the Green party's recent proposal that everybody should be given the same basic financial allowance to free up all members of society to do what they really want to do with their life. People who currently fall foul of establishment values might then fulfil their potential.
Elizabeth Rowan
A new way to reach out? The BFS competitions seem to go from strengtl1 to strength
every year, but as a teacher, I feel concerned that they are too dominated by the specialist music school crowd. I look at my very capable and enthusiastic students and would like to give them the opportunity to perform and be appraised, but I feel that the experience might just be discouraging for them. They are good, young, developing players - not music school superstars. I feel that BFS competitions are not for us. At the same time, I really want my students to feel that the BFS has something to offer them. After all, if we don't encourage uptake of membership by youngsters, the society will eventually age and wither. So it's a dilemma.
One suggestion I have could be for the BFS to liaise with regional music festivals around the country and offer a BFS prize in flute categories in locaVf~fival events. Performers would need to be a junior member to be eligible to compete, and the prize could be something small - perhaps a medal, or a ticket to a Premier Flautist recital. But this would get the BFS out into the youth flut ing community right around the country, without confining itself to the cream of young players. I would then feel my students had something to aim for.
What do you think?
Juliet Parry