Flute quartet to present Nov. 6 recital

Classical music audiences grow up listening to the musical trope of a flute as a bird: light, graceful and often airborne. 
 
What happens when the familiar becomes unexpected? That’s what audiences will find at a recital by the Aviary Quartet, set for 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 6, in the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center’s Founders Recital Hall on the South Dakota State University campus.

The quartet features flutists Elizabeth Robinson, assistant professor of music at SDSU; Karen Large and Mary Matthews, assistant professors of flute at Florida State University; and Laura Pillman-Patterson, instructor of flute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In this recital, a series of new works for flute quartet by living, female composers explore the sounds of the flute as a bird, but with a twist. What if the birds are flightless, like chickens? Or behaving strangely, as with the flamingo ballet? Or when they fly together en masse, as with the noisy — and sometimes messy — flocks of starlings?

Join the Aviary Quartet for a concert of fun and unexpected works for flute. The performance will include music by composers Lisa Bost-Sandberg, Nicole Chamberlain, Gay Kahkonen, Anne McKennon and Kimberly Osberg. Stephanie Kocher, flute instructor at the University of South Dakota and Dordt College, will provide assistance on “Spooklight” by Chamberlain.

The recital is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the SDSU School of Performing Arts at 605-688-5187.