1. Folk Songs and Dances from the Balkans by Costel Puscoiu. A book and CD from Mel Bay Publication, Inc. on release MB98527BCD# 4. Price $14.95. See excerpts of sheet music and hear recorded samples online: http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?productid=98527BCD

This anthology of 63 short pieces will be a delight for students at the intermediate level and provide good experience reading odd meters and rhythms and learning to make these tunes work. The whole breadth of South-Eastern Europe is represented with works from Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Albania. This will be unfamiliar territory for many flutists, but this is just another example of the widening world of music and the variety of styles to be mastered. All the melodies are played on the CD in a singing and lively rendition by Jacqueline Dekker with accompaniments played on a keyboard synthesizer that attempts to make a full idiomatic background of strings, piano, and occasional percussion. Although not printed in the album, PDFs of the full piano parts along with recordings of the piano accompaniments can be downloaded for free at Mel Bay website noted above. (J.E.P.)

2. Inflorescence III – Music for Solo Flute performed by Laurel Zucker. A two CD package released on Cantilena Records CD 66042-2. Hear samples at www.laurelzucker.com and buy from standards sources such as www.cdbaby.com. Price: $23.97

This is the third set of recordings of unaccompanied flute solos produced by Zucker and she has outdone herself…again! An inflorescence is a characteristic arrangement of flowers on a stem or a flower cluster, and this is, indeed, a profuse flowering. As she explores further afield from the standard repertoire, Zucker has turned up some very special new solo pieces by major contemporary composers, including Philip Glass’ Arabesque In Memorium for Solo Flute; Daniel Dorff’s August Idyll for Solo Flute; Jack Perla’s Partita for Solo Flute; Bruce Lazarus’ Far Corners for Solo Flute; Marius Flothuis’ Aubade, Picolla Fantasia; Harald Genzmer’s Pan for Solo Flute; William Jay Sydeman’s for Solo Flute III; Roberto Sierra’s Mariposo for Solo Flute; David Kechley’s Supper’s Passing In Memorium Jerilee Taverniti Kechley; and Laurel Zucker’s own delightful Dog Toy Suite as well as some less familiar older works that deserve more performances: Anton Stamitz’ Eight Caprices for Flute; J.J. Quantz’ Caprices and Fantasies for Flute; Savario Mercadente’s Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Sonata No. 2 in F, and Sonata No. 3 in E minor; and Arcangelo Corelli’s La Folia Variations. (J.E.P.)

3. Free sheet music to download! We frequently praise Laurel Zucker for her virtuosic playing, elegant and expressive musicality, and well-produced recordings, but we also want to note her service to the flute community in posting on her website a number of fine works that cannot be found elsewhere. In addition to the full score of her Dog Toy Suite mentioned above, she makes available on-line her original cadenzas for the Mozart Flute Concertos in G and D, and the flute and guitar score of Victor Frost’s Nuyoricano Tango, which she recently recorded. In addition, she also shares with us three of her brilliant earlier concert etudes for solo flute: Aviary, Effect Out, and Lookout— for a long time now, Zucker has been writing the sort of thing Ian Clarke has made his reputation on in the last few years.

Finally, Laurel Zucker has done the flute world a real favor by making available as free downloadable PDFs files for printing performance copies of Kuhlau’s long lost Three Duets for Two Flutes, Opus 30 and Three Duos Brilliante for Two Flutes. (Be sure to load up your printer and check your ink cartridge before attempting to prints these Kulau duets: Opus 30 is 46 pages long and Opus 31 is 43 pages.) She has also recorded these duets on a CD with Renee Siebert. Thank you, Laurel, for your generosity, superb performances, and fine compositions! You will find links to these treasures at: http://www.laurelzucker.com/links.php (J.E.P.)

4. Scale Studies for Beginner and Intermediate Flutists by Meerenai Shim. Available at www.meerenai.com or from Flute World or Carolyn Nussbaum Music. Price: $14.95

This well-thought-out and handsomely produced 48-page book presents scale patterns in a progressive order with a variety of rhythms, articulations, scale fragments, and chord patterns to assure that the student masters the difficulties of each key before proceeding. (I especially like the use of the little ♥ symbol for those basic scale forms that need to be learned by heart.) Beginning with one and then two-octave scale material, Shim stresses the importance of tracking your progress with a metronome in the spaces provided, and she revisits the scales in A major/F# minor, Bb major/G minor, C major/A minor in order to work on gradually mastering the third octave, applying repeated rhythmic patterns, and the “chunking” of finger patterns that need to be ingrained for further progress in speed and control. She also returns to emphasize two and three-octave scales in the remaining key signatures. The book ends with a comprehensive review of chromatic scales, full-range major/minor scales, and arpeggios. A clear and accurate fingering chart is included. This book is an excellent prelude to the Taffanel et Gaubert 17 Daily Studies or the Trevor Wye Complete Daily Studies. (J.E.P.)

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