Virtuoso

I’m not really a musician. I worked for the SoHo Baroque Opera Company for 25 years. When I studied the flute, I drove my teacher crazy because I prefer musical theory to tooting scales. I wrote the libretto for Elodie Lauten’s opera Orfreo. Oh yeah, and I married a flutist. I decided it would be a neat project if we mastered John Cage’s Three Pieces for Flute Duet. Jane had been a professional flutist for 12 years (flutists think flautists are pretentious). I often listen to Paul Zukofsky play Cage because I like Paul's father's poetry. Cage's work for violins strains the ears worse than Bartok. After serious study, Jane announced Three Pieces for Flute Duet were too damn difficult. Jane's cousin June was dating James Galway. He could do it, she said, with Rampal. Cage’s music tests the performer's limits.