“Technically robust and musically forceful…Ms. Porter is a formidable player”
– The New York Times
Join us in Kerrytown Concert House’s salon-style setting for a captivating concert featuring internationally acclaimed flutist Amy Porter with renowned pianist Christopher Harding. “By Request” is a community-curated recording project led by Professors Amy Porter (flute) and Christopher Harding (piano). After receiving over 70 online votes from students, alumni, and supporters, the repertoire was selected by the public. The chosen works span centuries and styles, featuring composers from diverse backgrounds and voices, including Lowell Liebermann, Mel Bonis, Andre Jolivet, and Karl Reinecke.
Amy Porter, flute
Christopher Harding, piano
Program:
Mel Bonis (1858-1937) Sonata for Flute and Piano Op. 64 (1904)
Mélanie Bonis made the decision to switch her professional name from Mélanie to the more androgynous Mel. Bonis’s life story, a classic struggle between duty and passion, has twists worthy of a soap opera and lies within the 300 musical works she wrote.
Sonata in C sharp minor, published by Demets in 1904, is dedicated to Louis Fleury, the famous teacher at the Conservatoire. It is a large-scale 4-movement work, full of poetry and a late romantic-impressionistic atmosphere, and an audience favorite.
Andante con moto
Vivace
Adagio
Moderato
Karl Reinecke – Sonata “Undine” Op. 167 (1882)
Sonata Undine in E minor is a flute and piano sonata written by Carl Reinecke, consisting of four movements, that is based on the novel Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. The tale depicts Undine, a water spirit, who longs for an immortal soul which can only be obtained through true love with a mortal man.
Allegro
Intermezzo. Allegretto vivace
Andante tranquillo
Finale. Allegro molto agitato ed appassionato, quasi Presto.
André Jolivet – Chant du Linos (1944)
Chant de Linos (‘Song of Linos’) for flute and piano is probably Jolivet’s most popular work for flute. It was composed in 1944 as a compulsory piece for the annual concluding competition of the Paris Conservatoire and was dedicated to the flute professor Gaston Crunelle. It imagines the Greek myth of the singer and lyre player Linus, who was killed by his ungrateful pupil Heracles by being struck on the head with his lyre. As he wrote at the beginning of the score himself, ‘une variété de thrène—une lamentation funèbre, une complainte entrecoupée de cris et de danses’ (‘a kind of threnody—a funeral lamentation, a song of lament interrupted by cries and dances’).
Lowell Liebermann – Sonata for Flute and Piano Op. 23 (1987).
This work will finish this requested album. A tour-de-force written in 1987 on commission by the Spoleto Festival, the Sonata has become one of the most studied, performed, and recorded works of late 20th-century flute repertoire.
This carefully curated blend reflects diversity across gender, nationality, time period, and cultural narrative—offering students and listeners the opportunity to engage with music through multiple lenses. These works are part of the canon of flute playing and are framed as learning and challenging collaborative experiences of duo chamber music.
This concert is generously supported by Classical Salon Series Sponsor William Fulton
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