Out of the Loop for alto flute
A suite in five movements for alto flute, lasting about twenty minutes. Elegant, quirky, aggressive, it explores the full range of colours available on this wonderful instrument.
Out of the Loop is a well-travelled composition. The first sketches were made in August 2010, on board a plane bound for South Africa. These sketches were fleshed out, among other places, in a hotel room in Olomouc in the Czech Republic, while making a recording of another piece of mine. I continued working on OOTL back home in London, and the first draft was finished in February 2011. Following a workshop with a flautist in June, I redrafted the fourth and fifth movements through the summer and autumn. Some of the finishing touches were made in the changing cubicle of a clothes store in Cheltenham. The piece emerged in its final form in September 2011; while on holiday in Hong Kong in October, I organised a recording (not yet released) with the flautist who had played at the workshop, and who had moved to Hong Kong to take up an orchestral position.
Three of the five movements of Out of the Loop are named after birds, which I suppose is appropriate since it moved around so much in its infancy.
Download here, or buy a hard copy, printed on high quality paper and spiral bound, at Etsy.
Please note, the last two pages of the score are blank, to leave room for performers' note-taking. If printing, you may want to print just pages 1-14.