Empathy and Understanding

Flutist Katherine McClure finds the musical center in artistic collaborations.

By: Ilene Dube
   When flutist Katherine McClure and pianist Esma Pasic-Filipovic play together, words are not necessary. Introduced in 1998 by a Princeton cellist, "We immediately had a musical understanding," says Ms. McClure. "Technically and musically, we are on the same page. We can understand each other with very little talk about interpretation. That’s quite difficult to find."
   The two Westminster Conservatory faculty members will perform on the Westminster Choir College of Rider University campus in Princeton Feb. 15.
   Sitting on a wooden chair, bathed in sunshine pouring through a window in the studio of her Kingston bungalow-style home, Ms. McClure recalls having had this rapport with a flutist from Paris, certain conductors and other musicians in a chamber situation. "There has to be empathy and understanding for a performer to lift off," she says, surrounded by her husband’s etchings and watercolors. (Ms. McClure’s husband, Robert Brown, is a business writer with Merrill Lynch’s Private Client Marketing group and a TimeOFF film reviewer.)

"Flutist

TimeOFF/Mark Czajkowski
"He was quite a formidable presence but very generous," Katherine McClure says of Jean-Pierre Rampal, with whom she studied.


   Ms. McClure had hoped to have a musical rapport with Davor Bucic, a flutist Ms. Pasic-Filipovic, a native Bosnian, had known in Sarajevo. "We had this French connection going, because we had both been at the Conservatoire Alfred Loewenguth in Paris," says Ms. McClure, who taught at the conservatoire from 1977-1986. She describes the French style for flute as sweet, pure and focused sound, with less vibrato. "It emphasizes many different tone colors…Jean Pierre Rampal is a good barometer."
   Both Ms. McClure and Ms. Pasic-Filipovic have been trying to bring Mr. Bucic to the United States for about year. They had hoped he would be here for the Feb. 15 recital, but at the last minute he was denied a visa.
   "The (Immigration and Naturalization Service) dragged its feet because, in the post-9/11 climate, there is a wariness of foreigners. So 17 days before the concert, we had to change the program," says Ms. McClure.
   The good news is, this will give the performers — including flutists Barbara Highton Williams and Elizabeth Stewart, who will join Ms. McClure in unaccompanied flute trios — a chance to delve deeper into music they have already performed. These include two pieces by Pennington composer Olga Gorelli — "Song of the Mermaid" for flute and piano and "Falling Leaves" for solo flute — that were performed at a private salon a month ago.
   Ms. Gorelli, born in Italy in 1920, has composed for opera, dance, theater and instrumental groups, and since the salon has given Ms. McClure feedback on ways to enhance the performance. "It is such a boost to speak with and be coached by composers like… Olga Gorelli. (There) is no better way to understand a new work, to get a glimpse of each composer’s unique take on rhythm and phrase."
   The goals for the faculty recital performances are to give students an opportunity to hear challenging repertoire and be inspired, and to give faculty a forum for collaboration and presentation of material. The program was selected by Ms. McClure, along with input from Ms. Pasic-Filipovic. "She loves to play Mozart sonatas. I suggested the Olga Gorelli pieces and then filled in the rest, trying to think of what would go well together but make sense. Originally I wanted more baroque and neoclassical 20th-century music with modern harmonic language."
   The three unaccompanied flutes will play Sonata in D minor by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Three Trios by Louis Moyse and "Flutes Legeres" by Jacques Casterede. The Moyse and Casterede pieces show the influence of American jazz and blues in 1940s-50s Paris.
   The program also includes sonatas for flute and piano composed by Mozart when he was 8 years old. Composer/flutist/pianist Gary Schocker, based in New York, is represented on the program with "Erev Shalom," a piece that premiered at the National Flute Association Convention in August 2002.
   "We’ve played Schocker before and had a good response, so we felt bold enough to choose his work again," says Ms. McClure, who has included the composer’s "Blue Bossa, Red Bossa," a take on the bossa nova, in the program.
   Two pieces by William Grant Still, considered the "dean of Afro-American music," have been chosen for African-American History Month.
   As for having a favorite musical period, Ms. McClure admits, "It’s hard to say. I find pieces from all periods so stunning. I love J.S. Bach. I find him very nourishing, centering and satisfying," she says. "It’s complicated, soulful and beautifully crafted. Mozart is so surprising; when you go back to his sonatas, you can find something more to bring out. He never gets old.
   "Even in the Romantic era, there are a few really good flute pieces. And the 20th-century composers really rallied. There’s so much good quality music."
   Ms. McClure enjoys working with contemporary composers such as Katherine Hoover, Laurie Altman and Ms. Gorelli.
   As a child growing up in Princeton, Ms. McClure studied piano at the New School for Music in Kingston. Her father is a chemistry professor emeritus at Princeton University and her mother is a professional musician. At age 10, Ms. McClure took up the flute, studying with Dorothy Kovacs in Princeton, and performed in the orchestra at Princeton High School. After her graduation, Professor McClure spent a sabbatical year in Oxford, and Ms. McClure accompanied her family, studying flute with William Bennett.
   Returning to the United States, she studied flute and French at Skidmore College in Saratoga, N.Y., and then spent the next 9 years of her life in Paris where her son, William Boquet, was born in 1980. (At 22, Mr. Boquet plays guitar with the band Dedd Vinyl; the group recently performed at Kat Man Du in Trenton.)
   When Ms. McClure studied baroque flute with Pierre Sechet and Philippe Suzanne in Paris, she learned to play a wooden baroque flute. With different fingering, phrasing and articulation, it was challenging to keep up on the two instruments at once. "In those two years I learned a certain aesthetic that informs my interpretation on the modern flute: playing with less vibrato, using shorter phrases and taking certain approaches to ornamentation (trills)."
   Ms. McClure studied with the late Mr. Rampal in Nice during the summers of 1976-77. "It was in a master-class setting, which is the European style of teaching," she says. "The master teacher and the student work one on one, but other students are listening. The benefit is you hear the master teacher’s comments on your own work as well as what he says of the other students."
   Studying with Mr. Rampal was "daunting."
   "He was physically tall and large, and I’m neither. He was quite a formidable presence but very generous. His emphasis was on interpretation — he would talk about the style or character of a piece. He was rigorous about tempo, and would demonstrate rather than describe how to do something. He was instinctual, a natural."
   Returning to the United States to earn a master’s in flute performance from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, she studied with Robert Dick and James Scott while serving as a teaching assistant. Having joined the Westminster faculty in 1990, she juggles teaching at the Lawrenceville School with a private studio and performing with Riverside Symphonia, the Newtown (Pa.) Chamber Symphony, the Edison Symphony, the Greater Trenton Symphony and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.
   If musical compatibility is crucial in small chamber ensembles, the challenge for establishing that rapport in a large orchestra lies with the conductor. "The job is so difficult," Ms. McClure says of the conductor’s role. "There is so much involved — stick technique, keeping the tempo, listening to balance and intonation problems, knowing what should come out of the score. The whole body language thing is so important for musicians — the conductor has to have relaxed shoulders, breathe, make eye contact and have a facial expression that embodies what they want. It’s so disconcerting to have a conductor with no connection to us."
The Westminster Conservatory Faculty Recital Series with Katherine McClure, flute, continues in Bristol Chapel, Westminster Choir College, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton, Feb. 15, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $7, $5 seniors/students. For information, call (609) 921-2663. Ms. McClure will perform with the Edison Symphony Orchestra at the performing arts center at Middlesex County College, 2600 Woodbridge Ave., Edison, March 1, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25, students $20. For information, call (908) 753-2787. On the Web: www.edisonarts.org
She will perform in a program of Ravel, Debussy and Milhaud with Riverside Symphonia May 9-10 at St. John the Evangelist Church, Lambertville. For tickets call (609) 397-7300. On the Web: www.riversidesymphonia.org. Ms. McClure will perform with the Newtown Symphony Feb. 23 in an all-Beethoven concert at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pa. On the Web: www.newtownorchestra.org, and with the Greater Trenton Symphony March 2 at the Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, Trenton. On the Web: www.trentonsymphony.org. April 5 she will be in a band backing Patti Lupone at the State Theater in New Brunswick. On the Web: www.statetheatrenj.org