The British Flute Society

President William Bennett OBE Vice President Atarah Ben-Tovim

Vice President Emeritus Sheena Gordon Honorary Patrons Sir james Galway

and Lady jeanne Galway Chairperson Carole jenner-Timms

The Journal of the British Flute Society

Volume 33 Number 4 December 20 14

Editor Elisabeth Hobbs editor@bfs.org.uk

Contacting the BFS

Secretary and Advertising Anna Munks

27 Eskdale Gardens Purley, Surrey CR8 I ET

Telephone and fax 020 8668 3360 secretary@bfs.org.uk

Membership Secretary N icola Thompson 48 Wistow Road

Selby Y08 3LY Telephone 0845 680 1983 membership@bfs.org.uk

Editorial Committee Carole jenner-Timms

Alastair Learmont Anna Munks

Niall O'Riordan

Design and layout Elisabeth Hobbs Editorial Assistant Elizabeth Rowan

Cover image Wm. S. Haynes & Co. Printed by Lavenham Press

Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect an

official view of the British Flute Society. All copyrights reserved.

Registered charity No. 326473 ISSN 2052-6814

The Council and Officers of t he British Flute Society

Chairperson Carole jenner-Timms

Vice Chairperson

Malcolm Pollock Treasurer

Catriona Crosby Area Representative Co-ordinator

Kate Cuzner Council Members

jocelyn Campbell; Kate Hill; Anne Hodgson; Lisa Nelsen; Niall O'Riordan;

Sally Quantrill; Rachel Smith AFT Representative

Hugh Phillips Membership Secretary

Nicola Thompson Legal Advisor

A lastair Learmont BFS Secretary and Advertising Manager

Anna Munks Edi tor

Elisabeth Hobbs

Full contact details (or all council members

and o((1cers are available (rom the secretary.

Area Representatives

Avon & Somerset Carole jenner-Timms 0 176 1 233982

Birmingham Ma~aret Lowe 0121 474 3549 Cardiff justine Swainson 029 2075 1313

Cheshire Dawn Savell 0 1925 416647 Cumbria Suzanne de Lozey 01539 560054

Derry/N I Sarah Murphy 0781 I I 07065 Devon (West) & Cornwall (East)

Kym Burton 0 1837 861 I 38 East Sussex Anne Hodgson 0 1273 8 12580

Hertford Sally Quantrill 01992 536236 Hertfordshire Wendy Walshe 01707 261573

Hertfordshire (Hitchin) Liz Childs 0771 I

080275 Isle ofWight Louis Henry 01983 531868

Kent Pat Daniels 01732 770141 Lancash1re Mark Parkinson 01257 410856

Lancashire (Preston) jane Pembleton-Smyth

01772 864587 Leicestersh1re Elizabeth Rowan 0 I 16 2514595 London E & Essex Kate Cuzner 0 1787 273628

NW London joss Campbell 07930 093564 Oxfordsh1re Kate Hill 0 1491 641212

Scotland Marysia Williamson 0 ISO I 762 510 Shropshire C§ire'Hennie 0 1948 780 I 49 Southampton/Hants Sarah Heard 07779

9276 13 Surrey jacqueline Cox 020 8773 04 36 Swansea Hugh Phillips 01792 865825

West Yorkshire Tracey Smurthwaite 0 1924

21 1538

INTERNATIONAL Austraha (VIC) Paula Rae +61 3 9882 6888

Australia (NSW) Derek Galloway +61 4 50045753

France Atarah Ben-Tovim + 33 5574 74428 Italy GeoffWarren + 39 85 4159865

Muscat, Oman Nicholas Foster +968 95203966 N ew Zealand Marion Titmuss +64 75520794

Qatar Pat Smith +974 4678121

Letters Write to editor@bfs.org.uk

A fabulous convent ion Fluting and Friends was truly the theme of the Convention

in August. It was joyful, friendly, imaginative - a sharing Convention where egos were sublimated to the music. A rare thing at Conventions!

My highlights were: the beautiful playing of the renasissance quartet (the Modena Consort), Samantha Chang's perfectly prepared lecture on Briccialdi with Niall performing, dressed and playing as the Italian Maestro, and Wibb and Trevor's immaculate playing in their Celebration concert. They showed us just how to do it! Finally, there was the last, crazy concert from contras to piccs, with fluting friends from all over the world making music together and having fun.

Thanks Carla, for a fabulous convention!

Atarah Ben-Tovim

Do competit ions reinforce inequality? I am writing to reply to the latest of Atarah's stimulating

letters to PAN (September 2014 issue), in which she draws attention to the fact that a recent flute competition jury consisted entirely of men. What do we think about this, she asks?

I am old enough to remember a time when there were no professional women flautists - with occasional notable exceptions like Atarah herself, who was pointed out to me as unusual, by my (male) flute teacher, when she (Atarah) was Principal Flute with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Some orchestras continued to be all male, until they were forced by the equal opportunities legislation of the 1970s to stop being exclusive. Unfortunately, in my teaching career, I have noticed the phenomenon that, now numbers of women have become professional musicians, it begins to be seen as a 'feminine' pursuit, and some boys and men decide they don't want to be with 'a load of girls'. As a result, we (society) notice the few who do play and give them extra encouragement -otherwise, we might end up with all female orchestras!

Another complication is built in by the fact that some people are not very keen on competitions per se, and it might be argued that there is an overlap of gender characteristics with this issue, so as to make it more likely that men will accept invitations to be on competition juries, and women may •be perceived as less enthusiastic about defining 'winners' and 'losers: This touches on the wider debate about the feminist movement as a whole, where it is often difficult for individual women and men to sort out exactly what equality means. For instance, as a pacifist, I don't want to see women in the armed forces; but this doesn't mean I approve of inequality of opportunity, and, for that matter, it doesn't mean I am never irritable and combative when coping with everyday challenges.

4 bfs.org.uk

The Editor, PAN The Dairy

Toot Baldon OXFORD

OX449NG

Sadly, human beings seem to like or to find it natural to divide things and to create barriers between people: men against women, rich against poor, incomers against natives, professionals against amateurs. To my mind, competitions are about separating a few successful performers from the unsuccessful generality, as a way of justifying and maintaining the inequalities in our society as a whole. This forcing of a few to the top is bound to exclude more women than men, though non-conformist men will suffer, too. Just think about how few women composers and conductors are being given a hearing, still - even though, thanks largely to pioneers like Atarah, the situation has changed for instrumentalists.

It has often been observed that ability and success are a matter of confidence - if people are given the resources they need they will perform better and believe they have a future; but as soon as they are written off as inferior or redundant they start behaving and believing accordingly. So let's stop making strict and meaningless divisions of all kinds, and adopt a philosophy about the future of music similar to the Green party's recent proposal that everybody should be given the same basic financial allowance to free up all members of society to do what they really want to do with their life. People who currently fall foul of establishment values might then fulfil their potential.

Elizabeth Rowan

A new way to reach out? The BFS competitions seem to go from strengtl1 to strength

every year, but as a teacher, I feel concerned that they are too dominated by the specialist music school crowd. I look at my very capable and enthusiastic students and would like to give them the opportunity to perform and be appraised, but I feel that the experience might just be discouraging for them. They are good, young, developing players - not music school superstars. I feel that BFS competitions are not for us. At the same time, I really want my students to feel that the BFS has something to offer them. After all, if we don't encourage uptake of membership by youngsters, the society will eventually age and wither. So it's a dilemma.

One suggestion I have could be for the BFS to liaise with regional music festivals around the country and offer a BFS prize in flute categories in locaVf~fival events. Performers would need to be a junior member to be eligible to compete, and the prize could be something small - perhaps a medal, or a ticket to a Premier Flautist recital. But this would get the BFS out into the youth flut ing community right around the country, without confining itself to the cream of young players. I would then feel my students had something to aim for.

What do you think?

Juliet Parry