Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise for Flute and Piano by Shulamit Ran

Piano score and flute part
Duration. 12 minutes

I. Sparkling, energetic

II. With mystery and awe, slow and flexible

III. Brilliant, articulate, propulsive

Extended techniques required: tongue rams, key clicks, tongue pizzicato, jet whistle, whistle tones, flute percussion

Israeli composer Shulamit Ran has created many powerful and sparkling works for flutists, but none for flute and piano until the Chicago Flute Club commissioned her to createthis work to be premiered at the 2014 NFA convention in Chicago. The inspiration for Birds of Paradise is based on Ran’s vision of a fantastical bird of many bright and amazing colors and the ability to soar high and in different speeds. Birds of Paradise intersperses brilliant and energetic music with the wondrous and songful.

“My decision to name this work “Birds of Paradise” was based entirely on the imagined vision of a fantastical bird of many bright and amazing colors and the ability to soar high and in different speeds, conjured up in my mind. My work intersperses music that is brilliant and energetic with the wondrous and songful. Its title notwithstanding, I did not set out to compose a “bird” piece- Messiaen’s music, which I admire immensely, would seem to render such an effort quite unnecessary.  The title does allude, however, to the musical imagery that the music, as I was composing it, was evoking in my own mind, where shifting motion and brilliant color take center-stage. The work is structured in three movement like sections that are played without breaks and that together form a fast-slow-fast shape, more a large ABC than true arch form. internally shaped in ways that allow for numerous detours into further contrasting terrains.” -Program Notes by Shulamit Ran