On 16 September, Japanese flute music about birds will be heard in the Dom Church in Utrecht. This concert is supported by the Japan Fans foundation.
On Saturday night 16 September, Martine Mussies will present a new repertoire of flute music around birds in the historic Cathedral Church. This event is part of the series “Night of Light,” where hundreds of people gather in the church every third Saturday night of the month to light a candle and enjoy the atmosphere.
Japanese flute music about birds
From the nightingale to the cuckoo, bird sounds have always held a special place in the musical imagination. On behalf of the Japan Fans Foundation, Martine has already regularly performed Japanese flute music, which includes many bird sounds and songs about birds. Apart from the Night of Light, she has performed with it at the Camera Japan festival, the Hanami Festival and in the Neude library as part of the Manga & Japanese Culture Week. Her repertoire includes the series of mini pieces composed especially for her by Patrick William Meagher. These pieces are based on the calls of Japanese birds and composed for the Garklein, the smallest recorder in existence.
For this concert, Martine complements her Japanese bird music with the bird sounds from Athanasius Kircher’s 1650 “Musurgia Universalis”, a manuscript she went to London specifically to see, and with a treasure trove of bird songs from the Baltic states. Indeed, last summer she spent a month travelling through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. From the big capitals to the small villages, by bus, train, Bolt and walking. She sucked in all the impressions – of the folk melodies, the landscapes, the architecture, the art, the history and not least the people and animals – and came back with a book full of notes, a bag full of CDs, a treasure trove of experiences and some new handmade flutes, which will be heard in concert for the first time on this Saturday the 16th of September.
In the upcoming “Night of Light”, Martine uses a range of unusual flutes, including, in addition to the Garklein and Japanese flutes, ceramic animal whistles, Skudučiai (bamboo flutes from Lithuania), Lumzdelis (a traditional Lithuanian shepherd’s instrument), and Stabule (also known as stebule or stabuļa, a Latvian recorder).
Night of Light, Saturday 16 September, start 20.15h, Dom church Utrecht