Program note: John Carmichael's "Phoenix concerto"
- by Yvonne Frindle
- Source: Published by Symphony Services
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Phoenix - for flute and orchestra
John Carmichael
(born 1930)
Lento
Allegro vivace
Soloist: Andrew Day
The legend of the phoenix stretches back even further than its reputed lifespan (anything from 500 to 12,954 years). In the Western tradition the phoenix is a bird with gorgeous plumage of gold and purple feathers - the only one of its kind, and always male. It would live for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert before burning itself on a funeral pyre, from which a new, young phoenix would emerge to begin another cycle. The broad outline of the phoenix story embodies both immortality and rebirth, ...