Daniel Goode, co-director of the DownTown Ensemble (it was started in 1983) explains how he got the idea to reform the traditional symphony orchestra.

The Flexible Orchestra, an idea and a name both hit me like a bolt of lightening in 2003: The instrumentation of the traditional orchestra is inflexible (with some toying around the edges: adding an exotic instrument or so, or electronics), the system feeds on itself, excluding new blood, its economics impossible, and it has terrible trouble relating both to contemporary developments and needs of its own community. Since I love the orchestral sound, think it is the big invention of Western culture, have loved so much of the traditional orchestral literature since a child, I have tried to re-conceive the orchestra, or if you will, reform it. With some very small sums of money I started the Flexible Orchestra in 2004, now with three years, one-concert per year, we are launched. The basic idea is that we can get the effect of a large orchestral sound with strategic instrumentation. And we change the configuration every year or two, not every 200 or so. Thus in an ensemble of 15 (determined by budget), we had 12 cellos, flute, clarinet, trombone for two years. Then: 11 trombones, 2 clarinets (all doublings), viola, percussion, and this year, 10 trombones, 2 clarinets again, 2 double basses, piano. I plan to rotate the instrumentation through most of the choirs of the orchestra, always having a majority of one timbre, and a few complementing other instruments. Of course all repertory for these combinations must be commissioned. A somewhat utopian idea is for flexible orchestras to spring up in other communities, allowing for co-commissioning and repeat performances of repertory if we co-ordinate our instrumentations. I'm working on this with other interested musicians in Vancouver and Amsterdam, though funding is very, very difficult. Another spin off, however, is easy as it is wonderful. With a choir of cellos, we can revive significant multi-cello pieces (we did with Hellermann and Lois Vierk works), with a choir of trombones we revived a 1969 work by Fred Rzewski for 10 trombones, and this becomes, in general, possible and useful, since pieces like these of artistic merit for specialized combos and numbers have a hard time finding revivals, and are easy to do at our concerts. So, in one sense we can pick up on the neglected recent past, while giving some timbral variety to our orchestral programming. I have been very lucky in our conductor, who has continued to be a David Gilbert protégé, Tara Simoncic. And for my own creative development there has been a huge stimulus. I have written a new piece for each year of the Flexible Orchestra. In 2007 I revised and expanded the one from 2006, Annbling, which will be for the orchestration listed above with some large gamelan gongs in the mix. I wrote a significant essay about the relationship between gamelan and the founding of the Flexible Orchestra for the AMC's NewMusicBox. http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=4652

October 16th, Fri. 8 PM at St. Peter's Episcopal Church
346 West 20th St. $15/10. #1,E,C trains, Info: dsgoodeearthlink.net
SoundArt Foundation presents:
FLEXIBLE ORCHESTRA'S FLUTES PLUS-2ND YEAR
20 & 21st Century music for Eleven Flutes, Viola, Tuba, Voice, Harpsichord, Piano by Kennan, Schickele, Sankaram, Goode, Corner, Beecher, Wechsler, Nobles.
Conducted by Tara Simoncic

A mixture of commissions and world premieres, with revivals of significant composers-is the feature of the Flexible Orchestra's 6th Season. The Flexible Orchestra is an acoustical re-forming of the traditional symphony orchestra so that with a much smaller group (15-17 in our case), we get the rich orchestral sound plus the orchestra's variety of timbres through strategic instrumentation: a big section of one instrumental family (cellos or trombones, or now flutes, and next year accordions!) mixed with a smaller selection of complementing and contrasting instruments.
Daniel Goode (founder and artistic director of the Flexible Orchestra), will present a revised version of last year's Flexible Orchestra premiere, Tuba Thrush, for eleven flutes, viola, tuba, and harpsichord. It turns one hermit thrush's song into a chord progression which is permuted exactly as the bird did on the field recording, a kind of ornithology passacaglia. The tuba interrupts, as the retreating deer did on the field recording, with a raucous series of snorts which has absolutely no effect on the choiring hermit thrush's serene song. The harpsichord "collects" the flute chords into after-resonance.
Kamala Sankaram will premiere her Ghosts for "surround sound" flute choir, piano and vocalize. Ms. Sankaram is a virtuosic singer/composer/accordionist fresh from her tour with the Wooster Group's Didone (Dido). She is also composing an opera on a Here theater residency. She will sing in her composition.
Lembit Beecher, young and prolific, a newly minted Ph.d from University of Michigan, will premiere a yet-to-be-titled series of short movements "remembering the act of drawing as a child." Movements have titles like "I wish I could draw a dragon," "tracing," sketching." It will be scored for eleven flutes and viola (with Joan Kalisch Kraber of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra).
David Wechsler, well-known local flutist and composer, director of the Omni Ensemble is commissioned by the Flexible Orchestra to do an arrangement of Felice's Solo from the ballet score for Shed. It was premiered in its entirety by Dancewave Inc. in 1988. This short movement is a gorgeous melody!
Jordan Nobles, from Vancouver, BC founded the "Vertical Orchestra" for an atrium in that city. He has specialized in multi-flute pieces for a long time, putting them on different elevations in the space. He will "horizontalize" his vertical orchestra (he's flexible!) putting the eleven flutes in groups at four corners around of the church.
Peter Schickele (aka, P.D.Q.Bach) is his "serious" self. His Monochrome V for Eight Flutes (1986) is a charming pattern piece that shifts and overlaps its seductive motives.
Kent Kennan (1913-2003) was a distinguished composer and educator (University of Texas-Austin) whose 1936 classic, Night Soliloquy-originally for flute solo, piano, string orchestra has appeared in many arrangements. The Flexible Orchestra is using Robert K. Webb's 1986 arrangement for solo flute, flute ensemble and piano. The solo will be played by Flexible Orchestra's first flutist, Karl Kraber. Mr. Kraber who served for decades as the flutist in the Dorian (wind) Quintet was last year's Flexible Orchestra soloist in Henry Brant's 1932 spectacular Angels and Devils for the eleven flute section of the orchestra.
Philip Corner, New York avant-garde composer/performer, co-founder of the influential '60's new music group, Tone Roads, and later of the collective, Sounds Out of Silent Spaces, has for years specialized in verbal, graphic, conceptual scores, as in his Fluxus pieces-he was a "card-carrying" member of this influential art/performance group started by George Maciunas. Mr. Corner was also an occasional composer/performer with the DownTown Ensemble. He now lives in Italy. His work, "Just Another 12-Tone Piece" is an oblique view of the 12-tone movement, extending the idea to 12 "characters," chosen by 12 players.
Tara Simoncic has been the conductor of the Flexible Orchestra from its founding in 2004. Most recently she has the distinguished honor of working with the Martha Graham Dance Company as assistant conductor. She is artistic director and conductor of the Norwalk Youth Symphony, has conducted the Greenwich Symphony and many other orchestras.
Flexible Orchestra's personnel are from among the best free-lance and orchestral musicians of the New York area: flutists
Lisa Arkis, Jeremiah Bills, Lisa Marie Dispigno, Susan Friedlander, Svjetlana Kabalin, Karl Kraber, Margaret Lancaster, Jayn Rosenfeld, Pam Sklar, Joseph Trent. Tuba: Jay Rozen. Viola: Joan Kalisch Kraber. Harpsichord and piano: Marijo Newman