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From the Sea to the Stars

Andrea Clearfield composer
Alyssa Morris composer
Erin Goad composer
Federigo Fiorillo composer
Eugène Bozza composer

Lindsay Flowers oboe & English horn
Andrew Parker oboe
Satoko Hayami piano

Release Date: October 25, 2024
Catalog #: NV6666
Format: Digital
20th Century
21st Century
Chamber
Oboe
Piano

Outside of Russian ballets and Mozart symphonies, the oboe is an instrument that generally does not get a lot of credit. But on FROM THE SEA TO THE STARS, the instrument is thrust into the spotlight it deserves. The driving force? Accomplished American oboists Lindsay Flowers and Andrew Parker.

Center stage, it turns out, is a surprisingly merited place for the oboe and its bigger sister, the English horn — especially in contemporary composition. Flowers and Parker have curated a moody selection of beautiful, minimalist pieces that allow the respective instruments to shine on their own — accompanied only here and there by a pleasingly subtle piano. Delicate, lyrical, and utterly charming.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Daughter of the Sea: Prologue Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 1:47
02 Daughter of the Sea: I. I Do Not Love You Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 4:01
03 Daughter of the Sea: II. Your Hand Flew From My Eyes Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 2:04
04 Daughter of the Sea: III. My Ugly Love Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 2:52
05 Daughter of the Sea: IV. You are the Daughter of the Sea Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 1:43
06 Daughter of the Sea: V. I Crave Your Mouth Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 2:37
07 Daughter of the Sea: VI. Don’t Go Far Off Andrea Clearfield Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 5:36
08 Brokenvention Alyssa Morris Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe; Satoko Hayami, piano 4:30
09 Overheard on a Saltmarsh Erin Goad Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe; Satoko Hayami, piano 8:11
10 Sinfonia Concertante for Two Oboes in F Major: Allegro Federigo Fiorillo Lindsay Flowers, oboe; Andrew Parker, oboe; Satoko Hayami, piano 10:55
11 Sinfonia Concertante for Two Oboes in F Major: Rondo (Allegretto-Allegro) Federigo Fiorillo Lindsay Flowers, oboe; Andrew Parker, oboe; Satoko Hayami, piano 7:47
12 Shepherds of Provence: Sous les Etoiles (Beneath the Stars), Op. 43 Eugène Bozza Lindsay Flowers, English horn; Andrew Parker, oboe 2:22

Support for this album was provided by the University of Wisconsin – Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation & Electro-Acoustic Research Space at the Mead Witter School of Music

Recorded on May 25-27, 2022 at Collins Recital Hall in Madison WI
Recording Session Producer Lindsay Flowers, Andrew Parker, Kris Saebo
Recording Session Engineer Kris Saebo
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Kris Saebo

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Jeff LeRoy

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Kacie Brown
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Lindsay Flowers

English Hornist, Oboist

Dr. Lindsay Flowers is the Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music where she is a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet and guides student-generated community engagement projects. She received a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Linda Strommen and Roger Roe. Her background in athletics distinguishes her pedagogical approach in her emphasis on performance visualization, disciplined commitment, and supportive teamwork.

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Andrew Parker

Oboist

Dr. Andrew Parker is currently Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Texas at Austin and faculty at the Round Top Festival Institute. In addition to his teaching, Parker maintains a rich performing career as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed concerti with numerous ensembles including the Dallas Wind Symphony, the Quad City Symphony, the Great Falls Symphony, the Puerto Rico Philharmonic, and the University of Texas Symphony Orchestra.  His solo album, The Singing Oboe, was featured as CD of the week for two consecutive weeks on the Boston classical station 99.5 WCRB.

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Notes

After summers performing together at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and years as colleagues in the Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, Lindsay Flowers, Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music and Andrew Parker, Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music, recorded works for oboe and English horn. The album opens with Daughter of the Sea by Andrea Clearfield and ends with “Beneath the Stars” by Eugène Bozza, taking the listener on a journey FROM THE SEA TO THE STARS. Other pieces include Brokenvention by Alyssa Morris, Overheard on a Saltmarsh by Erin Goad, and Sinfonia Concertante for Two Oboes by Federigo Fiorillo. This program represents a diversity of style and compositional voice, thus providing Flowers and Parker an opportunity to explore more deeply the artistic dialogue that brought them together in the first place. The performers hope that this album encourages all oboists and English hornists to discover the joys of these works and of collaboration. They are joined by pianist Satoko Hayami.

Daughter of the Sea was commissioned by the Women Composers Festival of Hartford, where Andrea Clearfield was the 2014 featured composer. The Prologue and six movements are sonic tableaus inspired by Pablo Neruda’s sensual Love Sonnets. The piece incorporates spoken and sung fragments, breath sounds, humor, and music reflecting Neruda’s dialectic of opposites that may resolve into sleep, rest, and dream. In the “Prologue,” the lovers call to one another with a feeling of longing, and its melodic phrases can also be heard elsewhere in the piece. “You are the Daughter of the Sea” (IV) is fluid and undulating like water. In the last movement, one plays to the other, they face away, one leaves the stage.

— Andrea Clearfield

Brokenvention is a single movement work with a title that plays on the Baroque music form “invention.” This invention appears in the beginning and ending sections of the work, first presented by the oboe and responded to by the English horn. The form is “broken” since the rules of traditional Baroque invention are not perfectly implemented; thus, the title is Brokenvention. The work as a whole is cast in ABA ternary form, with a shared oboe and English horn cadenza building energy toward the final A section.

— Alyssa Morris

Overheard on a Saltmarsh audibly depicts the story of the goblin and the nymph on a marsh bathed in moonlight. The following is an excerpt of the poem, Overheard on a Saltmarsh, by Harold Monro from which it is based:

     They are better than stars or water,
     Better than voices of winds that sing,
     Better than any man’s fair daughter,
     Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

     Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

     Give me your beads, I want them.
             No.

     I will howl in the deep lagoon
     For your green glass beads, I love them so.
     Give them to me. Give them.
             No.

– Erin Webber (Goad)

Even though this is the only work in which the performers both play the oboe, it was the one that initially inspired the album. Fiorillo (1753–1823), a popular mandolinist, violinist, and composer best known for his violin caprices, also composed numerous duets for treble instruments including the Sinfonia Concertante for Two Oboes. The oboes maintain a constant dialogue throughout granting each voice an equal role in the conversation. While the work remains classical in style, its two-movement format deviates from the expected three-movement convention. There is no slow movement in the piece; Fiorillo instead chose to follow the Allegro first movement with a final movement that begins with a light Rondo-Allegretto theme that evolves into a scintillating Allegro finish.

“Sous les Etoiles” (Beneath the Stars) is the third movement from the Shepherds of Provence, Bozza’s work that many oboists know from its inclusion in the Vade-Mecum of the Oboist. This single movement appears on the album as a celebration of the oboe and English horn’s capacity to evoke the sound of the human voice.