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"From East to West, from Ancient to Modern"... Mr. Eustache embodies a new direction in creative Woodwinds doubling |
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Talking about woodwind players, we live in a time of explosive growth in both musical level & technical command in instrumental music. There are extraordinary flautists, phenomenal saxophonists, marvelous woodwind players, amazing masters in flutes and woodwinds from different cultures of the world, and they ALL are absolutely powerful at what they have specialized in. There are others that pursue more than one musical direction--beyond the traditional WWs doubling--while going after e/o of them as if they where their only activity. Case in point: Pedro Eustache. As a flautist alone, for example, he can "wear" the solo-recital, symphonic, jazz, pop, studio musician, Latin, world-music, and contemporary/avant-garde "hats" with profound stylistic appropriateness, changing from one to the other with effortless flexibility, in a natural way that is indeed--and without a doubt--extremely rare. If we add to this his musical knowledge & technical command in the 'reeds' [saxophones & bass clarinet]; world- music woodwinds [close to 600, from all six continents]; and wind synthesis [both as a programmer & performer] we find a remarkable, deeply committed artist truly consumed by what he defines as "his Calling". |
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There are others that pursue more than one musical direction--beyond the traditional WWs doubling--while going after e/o of them as if they where their only activity. Case in point: Pedro Eustache. As a flautist alone, for example, he can "wear" the solo-recital, symphonic, jazz, pop, studio musician, Latin, world-music, and contemporary/avant-garde "hats" with profound stylistic appropriateness, changing from one to the other with effortless flexibility, in a natural way that is indeed--and without a doubt--extremely rare. If we add to this his musical knowledge & technical command in the 'reeds' [saxophones & bass clarinet]; world- music woodwinds [close to 600, from all six continents]; and wind synthesis [both as a programmer & performer] we find a remarkable, deeply committed artist truly consumed by what he defines as "his Calling". It is not common--in our times of 'doing-one-thing' super-specialists--to find this sort of 'musical pentathlonist', someone that can go easily from sitting in a Symphony Orchestra, to playing a solo-flute recital, then to improvise over Jazz standards, performing in deep musical understanding from Bach, to 'Charanga', to Sys-Ex & computer-based interactive music, to the South-American kena; 'jumping' from the Armenian duduk to the Australian didgeridoo, to the wind synths; from Mozart, to Coltrane, from Indian Ragas to Persian music, from the Cuban flute trad. of José Fajardo to the endless flute & compositional world of James Newton, from Brazilian genius composer & multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Paschoal to the Middle Eastern bamboo nay flutes, he studies and 'digs' them all, out of sheer admiration & profound respect. The pursuit--in a real, not superficially/simplistic way--of so many 'different' musical directions allowed him to achieve a 'voice' that is richly unique & personal, yet anchored by realistic humility. He knows that each one of them demands a lifetime of well focused, concentrated dedication, yet he keeps going after them with stubborn single-mindedness. In his own words he is "in the 'business' of following orders from Above". Where others in his place would perhaps fall in the trap of self-glorification, Pedro straightforwardly acknowledges that the merit is due solely "to The One that gave me the gift". Quoting him still, he says: "God made me a musician to keep me humble for the rest of my life. How could I not be humbled by so many preceding great historic masters-geniuses, like J.S. Bach, J. Coltrane, Beethoven, Acharya Allaudin Khan, Ch. Parker, J. Brahms, Pndt. Ravy Shankar, W.A. Mozart, N. Banerjee, Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, Pndt. Hariprasad Chaurassia, Etc.?"
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