Featured on Augusta Read Thoma’s Website
Eftihia Arkoudis' choreographed performance of Euterpe's Caprice for Solo Flute (2008) is now featured on the official website of American composer Augusta Read Thomas. This two-minute fanfare was made as a holiday gift for flutist Claire Chase and was first performed by Katherine Borst Jones at the 2010 Festival of New Music, Ohio State University (2010).
“Although this music is highly notated, precise, carefully structured, thoughtfully proportioned, and so forth... and although the performer is elegantly working from a very specific text, Augusta likes her music to feel spontaneously propelled; as if the audience were witnessing a “captured improvisation.” She does this by creating works that encourage the performer to nurture the music’s gradual emergence rather than being controlled by it.”
Based on the quote above, Eftihia was inspired to choreograph this work based on ancient greek mythology. God Apollo, the son of Zeus, was the God of light and music, and the protector of arts. As the extraordinary musician he was, he mentored all nine muses (daughters of Zeus and sisters of Apollo), as each one of them represented an art. Muse Euterpe was the muse of flute playing and lyric poetry. God Apollo, like his father, was very flirtatious and playful with women. He admired the female nature and was the biological father of hundreds of children. In fact, some of these babies were conceived with some of the muses. But generally he was unlucky when it came to his love life. The women he truly loved would not love him in return. Muse Euterpe may not have bore any of his children, but for the purposes of this choreography you will witness how Apollo flirts with his student Euterpe and how she teases him.
Does she give in to Apollo’s love? Watch the video
