Chris Norman

Nova Scotian flute player Chris Norman came to the Ohio State University this past April as part of the Johnstone Woodwind Master Series in conjunction with the Central Ohio Flute Association. He and guitar player Andy Thurston played a rather unusual show on the night of 21 April. The first half was an informal concert featuring mostly traditional Scottish tunes, with some Irish, Cape Breton, and original compositions as well. He was joined, at times, by Robert Aitken on piccolo and a local woman named Casey (I didn't catch her last name) on piano. Chris said that he had met Casey at a Kinko's the day before. The concert became even less formal in the second half of the show as he invited the conference attendees to get out their instruments and play along with some tunes. There were perhaps 50 or so Boehm system flute players, a couple guitarists, a pianist, one other simple-system flute player besides Chris and myself, and one bassoonist!

The photo above shows Chris playing the Scottish smallpipes. Although they're fingered like the GHBs, Chris said they originate in the music of the Scottish Travellers rather than the mainstream Scottish music tradition.

Here's Chris, Andy, Casey, and Robert playing a tune together.

The photo above is from the second half of the show. Chris projected the scores for the tunes, played them through a couple times, had everyone play along, and then gave some feedback to the audience, mostly on rhythm.

The show wasn't particularly well-publicized outside of OSU. I was lucky to hear about it, because it was a great concert.