NICOLE MOLUMBY

• Pucihar: Sonatina - I. Vivo

“[Nicole Molumby's] sound is full and plush from top to bottom, making anything she plays easy to like. She interprets the unaccompanied pieces with personality, then shifts to engage and exchange with her fellow musicians in the chamber music. The sound is superb, and all the playing is first-rate. Wind players should definitely avoid this release unless they’re prepared to encounter some new music they’ll be dying to play!”

Gorman, American Record Guide [May/June 2015]

“On Awakening: 21st Century Slovenian Flute Music, Nicole Molumby surrounds the flute with string bass, bassoon, clarinet, piano, and oboe. Rather than weighing her down or clipping her wings, however, they feather her nest. Blaž Pucihar, three of whose pieces Molumby performs, is her pianist, so inter-ensemble sympathy abounds.“

Arsenio Orteza, World [September 2014]

“From the outset these six works are advanced, imaginative, exhilarating, jubilant and utterly irrepressible... Pucihar's Trio brims with catchy melodies. Likewise his work for solo flute entitled 'ForMe' is a gorgeous little piece overflowing with entrancing ideas. His Sonatina for Flute and Piano is a glorious no-brainer... [Voglar's] Awakening of Spring...is beautifully melodic. The Trio Op 67 for flute, clarinet and bassoon shows he has a keen ear for chamber music... All the players are faultless performers including composer Pucihar as pianist. Nicole Molumby, the instigator of 'Awakening', shows outstanding prowess as flautist with a gorgeous honeyed tone. The recording and the sound is bright and clear-cut.”

Howard Smith, Music & Vision [September 2014]

“Rather than weighing her down or clipping her wings [Molumby's collaborators] feather her nest. Blaž Pucihar, three of whose pieces Molumby performs, is her pianist, so inter-ensemble sympathy abounds. 'His compositions are fresh, innovative, and heart warming,' writes Molumby in the liner notes, and she’s right. She was also right to have Pucihar arrange Peter Kopač’s restlessly somber Romanca.”

Arsenio Orteza, World Magazine [September 2014]

The Awakening CD project was inspired by the creative and contemporary music of Blaž Pucihar, Črt Sojar Voglar and Peter Kopač. I met Blaž and Črt in 2009 during a professional trip to Croatia. The title for the disc was inspired by the English translation of Voglar’s piece, Prebujanje Narave (Awakening of Nature), which I commissioned for this project in 2010. For the past 20 years, Slovenia has been slowly awakening from its days as part of former Yugoslavia. Their rich musical tradition and rigorous musical training are now being expressed in a fresh, uplifting and beautiful way, finding new audiences on the world’s concert stages, and to a great degree through the music of Kopač, Pucihar and Voglar. Gained through this musical collaboration has been my own awakening and greater understanding of the many similarities shared between my formerly Yugoslavian friends and myself. Although we grew up on opposite sides of the world in the 1970s and 1980s, our childhood experiences, musical training, professional successes and challenges have taken parallel paths in the global community. Ultimately, my wish is for the listener to experience their own awakening, and to find new love for the music of these innovative, talented and creative composers. Although the music was written in Slovenia, it exists in a creative world without boarders or cultural expectations.
[Nicole Molumby]

CD projekt Prebujanje je navdihnila ustvarjalna sodobna glasba Blaža Puciharja, Črta Sojarja
Voglarja in Petra Kopača. Blaža in Črta sem spoznala leta 2009 na službenem obisku v Zagrebu.
Naslov te zgoščenke je navdihnil angleški prevod naslova Voglarjeve skladbe Prebujanje narave
(Awakening of Nature) za flavto solo, ki sem jo naročila v letu 2010 ravno za pričujoči projekt. V
preteklih dvajsetih letih se je Slovenija počasi prebujala iz obdobja, ko je bila del bivše Jugoslavije.
Njena bogata glasbena tradicija in visoko kvalitetno glasbeno izobraževanje se danes izražata na
raznovrstne umetnostne načine, ki bodo zagotovo našli občinstvo na svetovnih odrih skozi glasbo
Puciharja, Sojar Voglarja in Kopača. Svoje osebno prebujanje sem začutila v večjem razumevanju
mnogoterih podobnosti s svojimi prijatelji iz bivše Jugoslavije. Čeprav smo odraščali vsak na svoji
strani sveta v sedemdesetih in osemdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja, so si bili naše izkušnje iz
otroštva, glasbeno izobraževanje, poklicni uspehi in izzivi presenetljivo podobni. Moja želja Vam kot poslušalcu ali izvajalcu je, da bi doživeli svoje lastno prebujanje in ljubezen do glasbe teh inovativnih, talentiranih in ustvarjalnih skladateljev. Čeprav je bila glasba napisana v Sloveniji, Vas vabim, da si ob poslušanju predstavljate svet brez meja, brez različnih kulturnih pričakovanj, ter da v glasbi preprosto uživate! [Translation: Ana Kavčič Pucihar]


American flautist Nicole Molumby maintains an active performing and teaching career. Performance engagements have included the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra (2008-present), National Flute
Association conventions (2010-present) and College Music Society conferences (2005-2012). Internationally, she has appeared in Norway, Austria, Croatia, Great Britain and as Principal Flute at the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria (2002-2009). In 2011, she received the College Music Society’s Technology Award for her innovative teaching strategies using iPads and in 2012 an Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship in Performing Arts. She also received a Boise State University Arts and Humanities Fellowship for her contributions and performances of newly  commissioned flute music by Slovenian composers Blaž Pucihar and Črt Sojar Voglar. Since 2011, Molumby has been on faculty at Passion Flute Summer Course with flautists Angeleita Floyd, Jill
Felber and Claudia Anderson, and was appointed as the Myrna Brown International Scholarship
Liaison for the National Flute Association. She has adjudicated for the Hornsfall Flute Competition,
Music Teachers National Association Regional Woodwind Competition and Idaho Music Educators
Association. Molumby received her DMA from Ohio State University, her MM from the Royal Northern
College of Music in Manchester UK, and BM and BME from the University of Northern Iowa. Currently
an Associate Professor at Boise State University, Dr. Molumby also presents performance anxiety
workshops and is a Level 1 iRest Certified Teacher.
 
PETER KOPAČ (b.1949) / Arr. Blaž Pucihar
ROMANCA arranged for flute, piano and string bass (2013)

BLAŽ PUCIHAR (b.1977)
TRIO for flute, oboe and piano (2012)
Allegro
Aria, Lento cantabile; Vivo

FOR ME for solo flute (2004)

SONATINA OP.5 for flute and piano (2004)
Vivo
Aria
Vivace

ČRT SOJAR VOGLAR (b.1976)
PREBUJANJE NARAVE for solo flute (2010)

TRIO OP.67 for flute, clarinet and bassoon (2002)
Allegretto
Andante, giocoso
Presto, nervosa
 




MSR Classics