William Kincaid, Principal Flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1921-1960 and teacher for many decades at the Curtis Institute of Music, was one of the most influential figures in the history of American flute playing.
While organizing and digitizing documents in my studio/office today, I came across a well-worn, yellowed photocopy of a 12-page document, “Notes on Flute Performance” by William Kincaid. I remember that the article (with no copyright indication) was given to me by a teacher many years ago. (I wish I could remember the rest of the story!)
I reread this article, which discusses basic topics including resonance, tone, embouchure, vibrato, articulation, phrasing and line from the context and in the words of William Kincaid.
I have posted a pdf of the article for you to read and to consider under ARTICLES/DOCUMENTS. I welcome comments and questions.
To
read more about Kincaid read: Kincaidiana by John C. Krell, a former
Kincaid student and member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, available at http://www.nfaonline.org/NFA-Store/Product.aspx?ProductID=74
There are several historic recordings of Kincaid re-released on CD available for purchase through a variety of sources.
We can still learn from this great teacher, William Kincaid.
Catherine
1 comment:
Good Morning Catherine,
Thank you for posting this article! It brought back many memories of when I first heard about William Kincaid from my former teacher Judith Bentley. She studied with him in Philadelphia and told me many stories. When Kincaidiana was published I so enjoyed reading that, and this article is even more interesting to me now. It is like a personal glimpse at a lovely and deep man who was passionalte about music and the flute.
I remember one story that Mrs. B told me about Mr. Kincaid. She was playing the 1st Mvt. of the Poulenc Sonata for him and as she said, made the mistake of saying the the high e's were difficult to make beautifully each time... His way with this was to have the whole lesson be on the high e ! A concerto on e...
She said that she has always remembered how he could really make music on an E for an hour . She never forgot that and has always loved playing the e's since then. I like to think of this and have experimented with this myself- well, maybe not for a whole hour :-)
~Jennifer
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