A chat with 2 key members of Moment Musical
In a weekend filled with many classical music possibilities, a great bet is Moment Musical’s “Sunday Serenade.” In Friday’s 7 section, I focus on pianist Alan Rea and flutist Janette Erickson, who over the years have played duets many times together. Here’s the extended version of that interview.
Question: You’ll be performing a little-played piece for flute and piano by Friedrich Kuhlau. Tell us about your radio experience that led you to this piece. It almost sounds like a bit of detective work.
Erickson: Alan and I had searched over the years of collaboration to find some worthwhile pieces that treated the flute and piano as a duet team, rather than a flute solo with very little thematic interest in the piano part. We love the trade-off of each playing the interesting material. So, always looking for another piece, one day I turned on the radio KVPR (FM 89.3) and heard a wonderful piece. I called in to find out the name and opus number: Kuhlau Grande Sonata, Op. 83, No. 3. We could not find this piece. I even looked while at the National Flute Convention and its Dayton C. Miller Collection. No one had it.
(Coincidentally, after we found the music, we later picked No. 2 after we played through the three Grande Sonatas a year later. We loved it the most!)
