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CUSP: Dick & Haluska redefine instruments at Crop Circles CD release party 

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by Max Newman

“We kind of wanted to explore the more aesthetically non-traditional approaches to playing our instruments.”

This was how harpist Stephan Haluska described his main musical goal on his album Crop Circles, made in collaboration with visionary flutist Robert Dick and released on January 19. The album’s release will be celebrated on Friday, January 26 at 8:00 pm at the Convivium 33 Gallery, when Dick and Haluska will be joined by the Max Hyde-Perry Ensemble in a presentation by the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project.

“Honing into the weirder approaches to what we can get out of a flute and harp duo was, conceptually, the only thing we wanted to do going into this. Everything is improvised,” Haluska said during a recent telephone conversation.

This largely reflects Haluska’s own musical goals. Throughout his career, he has strived to push the boundaries of what the harp can do.

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Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project: A night of improvisation 

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by Mike Telin

“Creativity is the expression of life, so for me the question is why on earth would you not be creative? Why on earth would you not want to grow?” flutist, composer, improviser, author, teacher, and inventor Robert Dick said during a recent telephone interview. A leader in contemporary flute music, he has redefined the instrument’s musical possibilities. 

On Sunday, November 7 at 7:00 pm at the Praxis Fiber Workshop, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project will present Robert Dick in an evening of solo works as well as group improvisations with Dana Jessen, bassoon, Bob Drake, hardware electronics, and Stephan Haluska, harp. Tickets are available at the door or online.

“I’m looking forward to returning to Cleveland,” the 71-year-old said. “I’ve had lots of good experiences there.” 

When asked about his — well — improvised program, Dick said that it will be somewhat stream-of-consciousness. “The flute is an unusual instrument in improvised music, so people tend to focus on the instrument and not the music. But all instruments have exactly the same sound, silence — it’s the human that plays them.” 

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Review: Greater Cleveland Flute Society — Robert Dick at The Music Settlement (October 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Dick-RobertNew York-based composer and virtuoso flutist Robert Dick was a busy man last weekend. He joined his former student Mary Kay Fink and high school classmate Joel Smirnoff to serenade the Women’s Committee of the Cleveland Institute of Music, gave a master class for composers and a public forum at CIM and finished up at The Music Settlement on Sunday with a one-hour recital and master classes featuring flute students from Baldwin Wallace, Oberlin and the University of Akron — a full afternoon of activities sponsored by The Greater Cleveland Flute Society.

Dick has established a reputation both for his expert playing of flute classics and contemporary music using extended techniques, and for his original compositions, which often spring from popular music. He began his solo recital with six of his own works, quipping that “when you premiere a new piece, you usually get to hear it twice: for the first and the last time.”

Not true in the case of Dick’s 1989 piece, Lookout, commissioned for a national high school flute competition, or for Fish are Jumping (1999) or for the four excerpts he played from Flying Lessons, a two-volume set of contemporary concert etudes, all of which have taken their place in the pedagogical or concert repertoire. [Read more…]

Preview: Composer-flutist Robert Dick to visit CIM and play for Greater Cleveland Flute Society

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by Daniel Hathaway

Dick-RobertComposer and flutist Robert Dick got energized about contemporary music at Yale in the early 1970s, where he was part of a small group of students who worked in a classic electronic studio even before the birth of the synthesizer.

Dick left school after undergraduate and graduate studies with a big vision. “I thought I would have the possibility of a huge international solo career playing new music. I really thought that the best music in the best performances would win the day and overcome the reluctance of people to listen to things that were unfamiliar to them,” Dick told us in a telephone conversation.

“The size of everything turned not to be what I dreamed. Music that really asks something of the listener is challenging, and the mass audience is not willing to take that challenge. The person who actually loves the experience of really listening to music is rare.”

Dick attributes the demise of active listening to changes in education. “In the 1970s, music was stripped out of the public school curriculum all over the country, which is probably the single root cause of why things are the way they are today.” [Read more…]

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