VIRTUOSO SERIES CONCERT YSMAEL REYES, FLUTE SOUND, MEMORY, AND IDENTITY SEPTEMBER 21, 2026 | 7:30 P.M. | ORGAN RECITAL HALL HYEJI SEO, PIANO Program Solo de Pajarillo for Solo Flute
Omar Acosta (b.1964)
Duo for Flute and Piano
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Latin Soulscapes for Flute and Piano
Raimundo Pineda (b. 1967)
Voyage for Flute and Piano
John Corigliano (b. 1938)
Sonatina for Flute and Piano
Eldin Burton
I.
Allegretto grazioso
II.
Andantino sognando
III.
Allegro giocoso, quasi fandango
Tuyería Barroca for Flute and Piano
René Orea (b. 1976)
PROGRAM NOTES
Solo de Pajarillo for Solo Flute Omar Acosta (b. 1964) Venezuelan-Spanish flutist, composer, and arranger Omar Acosta is one of the prominent figures in contemporary Venezuelan music. Trained through Venezuela’s El Sistema, he performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar and Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela before moving to Spain in 1998, where he has developed a career encompassing classical music, flamenco, Venezuelan traditions, and world music. His work reflects this broad musical background, combining the virtuosity of the concert flute with the rhythms, gestures, and expressive language of Latin American traditions. Composed in 1991, Solo de Pajarillo draws on the pajarillo, one of the characteristic forms of the Venezuelan joropo. Acosta translates the musical gestures traditionally associated with the cuatro, harp, and bandola into the language of the solo flute, using rapid articulation, rhythmic drive, ornamentation, and distinctive melodic turns. The result is a virtuosic work that transforms the flute into a remarkably convincing voice of Venezuelan folk music. Duo for Flute and Piano Aaron Copland (1900–1990) Aaron Copland occupies a central place in American musical history. Born in Brooklyn in 1900, he studied composition with Rubin Goldmark and later with Nadia Boulanger in Paris before establishing himself as a composer, conductor, teacher, and advocate for American music. His music often combines modernist techniques with an unmistakably American sense of melody, rhythm, and spaciousness. Written in 1971, Duo was commissioned by seventy students and friends of the celebrated Philadelphia flutist William Kincaid in his memory. It was Copland’s final major extended composition and is organized in three contrasting movements: Flowing, Poetic, somewhat mournful, and Lively, with bounce. The work is lyrical and pastoral, with the flute and piano sharing equally in musical conversation. Its reflective middle movement serves as an especially poignant memorial, while the energetic finale brings the work to a lively conclusion.
Latin Soulscapes for Flute and Piano Raimundo Pineda (b. 1967) Raimundo Pineda is a Venezuelan flutist, composer, and conductor whose musical career grew out of Venezuela’s renowned El Sistema. He served for more than three decades as principal flute and piccolo of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, performing internationally with many of the world’s leading conductors and soloists. As a composer, his catalog includes concertos, chamber works, flute ensemble music, and symphonic works that frequently draw upon Venezuelan musical traditions. His work as a conductor began with the National Flute Orchestra of Venezuela, where he served first as associate conductor and later as music director, and has continued with orchestras and youth ensembles in Venezuela and the United States. Latin Soulscapes explores the vibrant musical world of Latin America through the lens of Afro-Caribbean popular traditions. Much of the work’s character comes from the rhythmic language of salsa, montuno, and other Afro-Caribbean styles, with syncopated patterns, repeated grooves, and dance-like energy shaping the dialogue between flute and piano. Pineda incorporates these rhythmic and harmonic elements, creating a work that moves fluidly between the sophistication of chamber music and the vitality of Latin popular music. Voyage for Flute and Piano John Corigliano (b. 1938) John Corigliano is one of the most distinguished American composers of his generation. Born in New York City into a prominent musical family, he studied at Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music before establishing a career that encompasses orchestral, chamber, vocal, and film music. His honors include the Pulitzer Prize, three Grammy Awards, and an Academy Award, and his music is characterized by an eclectic approach that embraces traditional tonality alongside modern harmonic and rhythmic techniques. Voyage originated in 1971 as Corigliano’s setting of Charles Baudelaire’s poem L’Invitation au voyage for unaccompanied chorus. In 1983, he transformed the music into an instrumental work for flute and strings, and in 1988 it was arranged for flute and piano. The music evokes the poem’s vision of an imagined place of beauty, tranquility, and sensual richness. Repeated melodic ideas unfold over gently shifting harmonic textures, creating a dreamlike sense of motion and stillness—an evocative musical journey in which the flute serves as both narrator and traveler.
Sonatina for Flute and Piano Eldin Burton (1913–1981) Thomas Eldin Burton was an American composer, pianist, and educator who studied at the Atlanta Conservatory of Music and later at the Juilliard School. His Sonatina for flute and piano won the New York Flute Club’s 1948 composition competition and was premiered the following year by flutist Samuel Baron. Although Burton’s compositional output is relatively small, the Sonatina has become one of the most enduring works in the flute repertoire. Burton’s Sonatina combines a lyrical, neo-Romantic character with colorful harmonic language. The first movement, Allegretto grazioso, unfolds through flowing melodies and delicate accompaniment; Andantino sognando creates a more introspective and dreamlike atmosphere; and the final Allegro giocoso, quasi fandango draws on the rhythmic character of the Spanish fandango. Across its three movements, the work balances elegance, lyricism, and virtuosity while giving both flute and piano prominent and complementary roles. Tuyería Barroca for Flute and Piano René Orea (b. 1976) Venezuelan flutist, composer, arranger, and musicologist René Orea has developed a distinctive musical voice shaped by both Western classical training and the popular musical traditions of Latin America. A graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema and the Université de Montréal. His compositions frequently incorporate rhythmic and timbral elements drawn from Latin American oral traditions, reflecting his interests as both a composer and ethnomusicologist. Composed in 2004, Tuyería Barroca brings together two seemingly distant worlds: the rhythmic language of Venezuelan golpe tuyero, a sub-genre of the joropo, and the contrapuntal and gestural vocabulary suggested by the Baroque. The golpe tuyero, associated particularly with the central Venezuelan region, provides the work with its characteristic rhythmic energy and instrumental gestures. Orea transforms these elements creating a playful and virtuosic dialogue between flute and piano that celebrates Venezuelan tradition musical heritage.
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