Armistice Flute Choir are: Keyna Wilkins (centre), Chloe Chung and Jessica Scott (top left to right), Laura Chislett and Liz Cheung.
Currently we are seeing and hearing artists, actors, assorted creatives and musicians react to conflict, agression and unhumanitarian decision making across the globe. Red carpets are becoming places of protest and writers have been boldly expressing individual and group horror at loss of life. Exhibitions and concerts are raising awareness for the unfortunate status quo of compromised cultural identity, history or common human safety.
One local group working hard in this mileu is Sydney’s Armistice Flute Choir. Their members’ contribution to fundraising for war-torn zones of the world – especially recently for victims of the conflict in Gaza, has been solid and ongoing in the hope that some level of peace and justice will be restored. As an ensemble with this concern present in its title, creative response and performance practice it offers the release of their emotional debut album, titled with the single, heartbreaking title of Hope.
Amidst the elevated, creative comment and significant, ongoing awareness-raising of continued conflict and persecution, we have with this album a septet of diverse and successful new soundscapes for flute choir. These pieces, conceived in the safety of Sydney, combine bass flute, alto flute, piccolo and C flutes.
Hope’s tracklist (available for listening across Spotify and all streaming platforms by accessing the album via https://armisticeflutes.hearnow.com/hope) easily blends the musical formats of guided improvisation, through-composed works, spoken word with flute choir plus extended flute techniques. The players interlock contrasting trajectories as well as cleanly provide inimitable flute chordal accompaniments for solo lines of expression.
Inspiration for tracks include the natural environment, our internal yearning for peace, plus the urgency of doing something to prevent further human loss and despair. Collectively they illustrate how the power of music can convey the intricacies of despair. Extending natural and human elements the tracks share a strong will for awareness of injustice in several different ways on this album.
The stillness and rewarding listening experience that Hope clearly communicates through these shifting formats and timbral combinations work so well. The experience and talent of the improvisors, composers, performers and humanitarians from the Armistice Flute Choir have supplied us with seven satisfying sonic instalments.
Bookending the tracks are different but equalling effective improvisations guided by Chloe Chung. These meditative impros sound like scored works as is the fine work done by the extemporising quintet.
All tracks educate, remind and can restore us if we utilise their careful unfolding for private rest and reflection during time-out from harsh realties. Chung’s Eternity 1 with its elaboration on the concept of an eternity pond is a warm Track 1 welcome.
After all that then follows on the album, this meditation’s more hectic and closing Eternity 2, with gasping modern techniques and flute effects has more of the panic of reality in a conflict affected home. The participation of the Armistice members when guided by Chung bring a colourful and penetrating portrait of coping with non-ceasefire landscape.
Above: the range of flutes performed on during this debut album by Armistice Flute Choir.
The ability of a flute-only ensemble to conjure shape and imitate nature, namely birds on a taught wire (in a missile-free environment like Australia) is nicely evoked in Laura Chislett’s Murmuration.
Tension, strength, survival and yearning are well covered in the three central concept pieces by Keyna Wilkins. Busy and extremely fruitful in writing music with a message for any musician or ensemble she is playing with or not, these pieces are no exemption in their directness and humanitarian drive.
A highlight of my listening experience would have to be her scored work Onyx, which manipulated the flute family perfectly as it presented the programmatic picture of a layered chunk of onyx.
This crystal or rock’s traditional use over milennia to provide warriors and royalty with fortitude, luck, and present-day spiritualists with a coping mechanism for stress in emotionally crises fits in well with the theme of this album and this flute choir’s focus. The piece is also an expert use of the five flute family members in a progressive, interesting texture to convey density, burden needing release and persistence.
Wilkins’ title track Hope once more proves the power, agility and purpose of an all-flute ensemble, as well as in particular this flute choir’s well matched members. Echoed in Liz Cheung’s refreshing and clever stem material for the successful group impro during Elasticity of Thought, Hope is another track on this release that urges almost instant replay. These bright reflections during darkened times are faithful sonic companions for when a listener needs to unravel or unwind in times that challenge conventional therapy or relaxation.
This album’s central guided group improvisation is the epitomy of strength, therapy and defiance of tyrants. An elevated pastiche, this features spoken word joins the flute gesturing with instructions to survivors from a person to be tragically killed during the in Gaza.
Based on text by deceased Gazan poet Refaat Alareer (with permission from his family), If I Must Die is confronting, strangely comforting, as well as never overdone or too busy in the juxtaposition of poetry and musical material.
This acute moment of sorrow and strength combined emphasises the admirable outlook and purpose of Armistice Flute Choir, the brave functional musicality of creative Keyna Wilkins and the afore-mentioned defensive power of artists, musicians and actors to use their craft and technical achievements to highlight hypochrisy and injustice across our hurting globe.
This track – and indeed all of the tracks on this new, influential flute choir release would be so well matched to any documentary or visual piece of creativity, tribute, protest or fundraising event.
The launch of this ensemble’s string of elastic thoughts and showcasing of the expressive talents of the flute as an instrument took place on Sunday 14 June at The Flute Tree & Woodwind Group in Leichhardt. in addition to the power of these scored and extemporised evocations being presented live, this group to watch and be comforted by raised funds for the PCRF – Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. This is a fund that their gigs continue to support.
This spellbinding, talented joint humanity from Armistice Flute Choir, well engineered by the team at A Sharp Studios Riverwood – is well worth a listen and maybe use in a structured way to relax, meditate and to calm our current surviving sensitivites.
Joint protest and the power of persisting with a cause is beautifully wrought here by this groundbreaking group.
