Hungary history timeline
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Ian Clarke (flautist)
British flutist and composer
Ian Clarke | |
|---|---|
Ian Clarke in May 2010 at Kirk of the Canongate, Edinburgh | |
| Born | (1964-02-04) 4 February 1964 (age 61) Broadstairs, Kent, UK |
| Instrument | Flute |
Musical artist
Ian Clarke (born 4 February 1964) is a British flutist and composer.
Biography
Clarke was born in Broadstairs to a chemist father (who played in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain) and a mother who gave private music lessons in cello and piano. His musical studies began on recorder at age six. He started piano lessons at age eight, and developed an interest in the flute by age 10, such that he began to teach himself how to play the flute. Following early private lessons from clarinet teachers, at age 16, he began private lessons with Simon Hunt and Averil Williams at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.[1]
Whilst Clarke listened to classical music in his childhood, with time, he developed an increasing interest in rock music. Clarke read mathematics for a year at the London School of Economics, b
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The Cross-Eyed Pianist
Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?
My parents bought a piano, at first just as a piece furniture, when I was aged 6, and (so I am told!) I asked them ‘When am I going to have lessons?’ They said ‘Oh, hadn’t thought about that’, but I went to lessons with the local piano teacher (in Hartlepool), Christopher Simmonds, who was great in many ways. Within a year he could see that I had the potential to go places, and I went to Chetham’s when I was 10.
But I got inspired to really go with it mostly through taking music out of my local library and bashing through it at the piano, as well as listening to lots of recordings. I bashed my way through the whole of the Ring cycle, and lots of other operas, and got absolutely hooked. And then at around age 10, I first heard music of Stockhausen, Cage and Messiaen, and was instantly transfixed (I also read the Richard Kostelanetz volume on Cage which was available then, in the late 1970s). I just found a world of the untethered imagination there which was unlike anything
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What the reviewers said...
"Remarkable musicianship"
Dec 2019
" Intelligent and sensitive direction"
Dec 2019
"...whole performance evidence of the quality and detail of preparation"
March 2019
"clear and sympathetic direction"
June 2019
"careful and ambitious programming"
June 2019
"the long violin solo lament was movingly played and the reels exhilarating"
Jan 2019
"The whole experience was wonderful"
Jan 2018
"'A Child's Christmas in Wales'... set to music by Ian Wright...was an absolute delight!"
Dec 2017
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