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The Blackburn-Hughes Duo's Czech Program

The Blackburn-Hughes Duo performed this program at the 1996 South Bohemia Music Festival in Tabor, The Czech Republic.

Sonatina, by Eldin Burton, was chosen as the prize-winning composition in the 1947 New York Flute Club contest. Burton, a native of Fitzgerald, Georgia, studied at the Juilliard School and later became director of the Georgia Conservatory and Music Center in Atlanta. In 1947, in addition to composing Sonatina, he made his New York debut as a pianist.

Suite Antique, by John Rutter, is a six-movement work reflecting earlier times in each movement's titles, yet showing Rutter's penchant for rhythmic and harmonic good humor. The suite, composed in 1981, has as its titles Prelude, Ostinato, Aria, Waltz, Chanson, and Rondeau.

Grand Mamou, written by Paul Hayden in 1991, is based on four Louisiana Cajun folk songs:

1. Les Veuves de la Coulee (The Widows of the Creek) tells of a group of women going into town to buy yellow cotton to make dresses.
2. Grand Mamou is the most popular folk song of the four--it tells of a broken-hearted lover returning to Grand Mamou (a small town in southern Louisiana.)
3. Te Monde (Little One) is a song about another broken-hearted lover: "Why are you like that? Waiting for me day and night, just to cause me misery, little one?"
4. Point Noir Two-Step is about a lover bemoaning his fate. The reference in the title to a dark, wooded area just south of Grand Mamou is never mentioned in the lyrics.
   

Sonata, by Lowell Liebermann, is a two-movement work for flute and piano which was commissioned by the Spoleto Festival Chamber Music Series, and was premiered there in 1988. The first movement, "Lento con rubato," establishes an ethereal mood of mystery, with occasional outbursts from both piano and flute, but the atmosphere quickly dissolves with the driving finale, "Presto energico," which requires great stamina from both players and is marked by virtuoso passages throughout.

Scherzo, by Bohuslav Martinu, was composed in 1929 after Martinu emigrated to Paris. At the time he was fascinated with American jazz, and this work contains evidence of that influence. This work, which is subtitled "Divertimento", is the third movement of his Sextet for Piano, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and two Bassoons.