Kristen Huebner Traverso Lessons in Utrecht

Traverso Lessons in Utrecht

Do you play the flute and want to switch to the traverso? Do you like baroque music and are you touched by the warm sound of the wooden flute? Do you have no experience at all with a wind instrument just yet but are eager and curious to start?

New sounds

My name is Kristen Huebner, flutist and specialised traverso player and teacher based in Utrecht. From my enthusiasm and experience I will encourage you to explore new timbres and styles while following the performance practices of the past.

Curious?

Are you curious about working with 'old' music? Maybe you are already an avid musician looking for new experiences and sound worlds? The traverso is the ultimate guide to beautiful, sensitive and fulfilling wind playing!

Just starting out?

For the enthusiastic beginner, the traverso can be a great starting point to learn what it truly means to play a wind instrument. It was my interest in this particular flute that brought me to the Netherlands twelve years ago, in search of a new playing technique and style.

What to expect?

Lessons on the traverso consist of a lot of playing together, especially in the beginning. Playing duets is a simple yet essential part of training our ears to the new sounds we are creating. Besides, it’s also just a lot of fun!

Improvisation

While we have sheet music and plenty of texts from the time to draw our information from, we also consider the rich aural traditions of playing by ear. A healthy dose of improvisation stimulates us to develop a solid sense of musical expression.

Repertoire

The repertoire and instrumentation options for the traverso are so varied and inspiring that a quick introduction to the instrument and style is enough to entice you into this new world of sound!

National Styles

The Baroque period offers a diversity of musical styles: the flourishes of the French, (Rameau, Lully, Marais) the counterpoint of the German masters (Bach, Telemann, Handel), the fiery Italians (Vivaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti) and even the modest Dutch (Van Eyk, Sweelinck, Wassenaar, Hellendaal). Even to this day there is an enormous interest in the music from the 17th and 18th centuries!

Experienced flutists

If you have started with the 'modern' silver flute, the experience of playing a wooden instrument is an entirely refreshing and exhilarating contrast. For experienced modern flutists, the traverso offers a rich musical counterpoint to current ‘modern’ flute studies, helping to develop a deeper sense of how we create our tone and an understanding of where that has come from in the past.

Special technique

You will learn new fingerings specific to the baroque flute, as well as gradually develop a feeling for the use of ornamentation and embellishments. We use the instructions from historical sources to support our performance of trills, finger vibrato (yes, it was done with the finger!) and other expressive devices. Baroque music on the traverso: a unique musical language, which we will enjoy through imitation and experimentation!

'Aural Archaeology'

The study and performance of music from the past, 'early' music refers to a number of time periods: medieval, baroque, classical, romantic. In this case we are working with the different styles of the 17th and 18th centuries, commonly known as the Baroque.

About Kristen

Originally from the United States, Kristen Huebner now bases her musical life in the Netherlands and Europe. A dedicated specialist on traverso (baroque flute), she holds both Bachelors and Masters Diplomas from the Utrecht Conservatory (BM) and The Royal Conservatory of The Hague (MM), where she studied with Wilbert Hazelzet and Kate Clark. She has toured Europe with Ton Koopman’s Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir and has collaborated alongside members of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under Frans Brüggen.

Travel and CDs

Kristen has toured internationally with several European ensembles, including Johannes Pramsohler's Ensemble Diderot, with whom she appears on their 2016 CD recording of the Mondonville Trio Sonatas. Kristen's research on Empfindsamkeit in the chamber music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach recently led to the publication of an article for the online journal Music & Practice.