Oasis

An Oasis of Calm...

"Children are given Mozart because of the small quantity of notes, grown ups avoid Mozart because of the great quality of notes" - Artur Schnabel

Recital: Michael Wood - Flute and Tim Carey - Piano


	An Oasis of Calm... ....Amid the pre-Christmas chaos. An evening of relaxing music in a beautiful setting. St Eustachius Church, Tavistock. Thursday December 14th 2006 7.30pm
Michael is one of the regions premiere flautists as well as a private flute teacher and conductor. At Trinity College of Music (1981-1985) he studied flute with Harold Clarke and conducting with Bernard Keefe, gaining GTCL and LTCL diplomas. In addition to teaching locally, Michael has been conductor of Flute Cocktail since the ensemble was formed in the year 2000, and he has performed with Plymouth Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia South West, Cornish Sinfonia and Opera South West. When he can be torn away from the flute Michael has a full time job as a flying instructor to keep him busy.	Review An air of serenity breezed into St Eustachius Church, Tavistock on December 14th 2006, as Michael Wood and Tim Carey arrived for their recital, ‘Oasis of Calm’. They began by captivating the clarity and perfection of Mozart’s Andante in C – a fitting tribute to the composer’s 250th birthday year. The audience was then immediately grasped by a completely different innovative air in three of Ian Clarke’s compositions. Michael illustrated the vigorous brightness in Sunstreams and followed it with the use of timbral trills in Sunday Morning, bringing a cascade of colour to the piece. The final of Clarke’s works explored the mystical world of the Giant African Snail in Spiral Lament. Michael and Tim communicated entirely the strangeness of the symbiotic relationship between the creative intricacies of music and the empowering majesty of nature. Tim Carey then took the stage with a powerful rendition of Chopin’s Impromptu No. 1 in A flat. Tim’s exceptional accuracy and magnificent use of dynamics added a touch of grandeur to the evening. Bach’s flute sonata in E major carried the performance to the interval. Whether playing or listening, Bach paints a slightly different picture each time and tonight was no exception in the unraveling of his intriguing harmonies and intricate rhythms wrapped in beautiful melodies. Michael portrayed the character of each different movement with skill and sheer delight. Following the interval the second half of the programme commenced with a Schubert sonata written originally for a nineteenth century instrument, the Arpeggione. The harmonically rich and soulful Adagio movement was joyfully enveloped by multi-faceted faster movements to begin and end. Michael and Tim captured every character in the music and presented the audience with a charming selection of moods. Tim continued with an exciting and vibrant piano solo, Brahms’ Rhapsody in G minor. The penultimate item continued with the theme of calm in Camille Saint-Seans’ Romance. The piece built up with a beginning as gentle as falling snowflakes and rose to tingling anticipation. As the music changed key the feeling of confidence grew to an elated plateau and then sank back into the warm romantic idea it began with. Surprisingly, Michael and Tim still had enough energy for the final piece, Mozart’s Variations on “Ah! Vous-dirai-je, maman”. The audience appeared to relish the familiarity of the melody and the return to the crisp clean composing that the recital started with. The melody from this piece is indeed enchanting and listeners must have surely left with the memory of a star twinkling on a calm dusky night above the chaotic Christmas rush below.	Tim Carey, who lives in Chelmsford, continues to enjoy a career full of variety as solo performer, chamber-music player, orchestral keyboard player and teacher. His early studies were with Harold Parker, Louis Kentner, and then, at the Royal College of Music, with Kendall Taylor, David Parkhouse, and Bernard Roberts. He was awarded many prizes and scholarships during his time there, both in and outside college. He now spends his time giving solo recitals and concerto performances and partnering many different instrumentalists, especially flautists, in a large variety of chamber-music combinations. He is the regular pianist for the Flutewise series, the Wildacres course in North Carolina, the Cincinnati flute symposium and many other flute events in England and America. As an orchestral keyboard player he has worked in the past with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Bournemouth Orchestras, the Philharmonia and currently with the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. He is much in demand as a teacher throughout his home county of Essex. Piano playing has takes Mr Carey all over Britain and Europe, as well as Israel, Malta, Russia, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia and regularly to the U.S.A, from where he has just returned. For the last three years he has given an annual solo recital in Kuwait.

	Programme...

Bach  -  Sonata in  E major

Clarke -Sunstreams

Clarke - Sunday Morning 


Clarke - Spiral Lament

Chopin - Impromptu No 1 in A flat Op.29 (piano solo)

Mozart - Andante in C

Schubert - Arpeggione Sonata

Brahms - Rhapsody in G minor Op.79m No 2 (piano solo)

Saint-Saens - Romance

Mozart -Variations

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