Don Hosek - Flute - May 2000
A bit of writing and arranging

The month began with a much-needed vacation. A couple fun bits of flute stuff related to the trip: At the airport, there was a street musician playing an alto flute. I stopped and we talked music and flutes for a while; I really wished I'd have gotten info on getting in touch with him when I got back. Then at the hotel, I was spending a bit of time practicing, although I ended up disgusted with how much my tone had decayed. I stopped and realized that I was still hearing flute tones. Wow! There was someone in the next room also practicing the flute. Neat, huh?

We ran a couple weeks of drummer auditions for my band, Dream in Color, and managed to find a drummer. The second weekend in May was the Focus conference, a gathering of Catholic Young Adults. For one of the songs, set to the tune of Ode to Joy, I wrote a flute trio backing instrumentation which also works on its own, which I later expanded to be for a full flute choir although it also works as a flute duet (or any combination of flutes). This ended up being the first piece on my new chamber music page which will feature my arrangements and compositions for small ensembles. I've also written the first 24 bars of a flute duet, "Palamon and Arcite," inspired by one of the Canterbury tales and in a fit of ambition made plans to write a total of twelve duets based on other elements of the tales. By the end of the month, my tone is getting back to where it was before my hiatus although there's still a long way to go.