Flute
Carla Rees is a British low flutes specialist who has developed an international reputation for her innovative work. She is Artistic Director of rarescale, an ensemble with whom she works to create and promote new repertoire for her instruments. She completed her PhD at the Royal College of Music in London in 2014, researching extended techniques for Kingma System alto and bass flute with the support of scholarships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the RCM. She is currently Programme Leader for the distance learning BA(Hons) Music degree at the Open College of the Arts and an Honorary Research Associate and flute teacher at Royal Holloway, University of London. She was Programme Director for two British Flute Society International Conventions, and currently serves as International Liaison Chair for the National Flute Association of America, as well as being a member of their New Music Advisory and Low Flutes committees. She recently became editor of PAN, the Journal of the British Flute Society. Carla plays Kingma System quartertone flutes made by Eva Kingma, Bickford Brannen and Lev Levit.
Carla’s career focuses on the development of recital repertoire for low flutes, and she has had several hundred works written for her by a wide range of composers from around the world. Premieres include works by Claes Biehl, Dan Di Maggio, Alexander Goehr, Sungji Hong, Robert Fokkens, Daniel Kessner, Nicola LeFanu, Adam Melvin, Scott Miller, Patrick Nunn, David Bennett Thomas, Ian Wilson, Scott Wilson, Elizabeth Winters and long-term collaborative partner, Michael Oliva. Her most recent project sees the creation of new contemporary works for baroque flute, which she has combined with studies in early music performance with Serge Saitta.
Her performing work encompasses chamber music and solo recitals, appearing frequently at international festivals, including recently at the French Flute Convention (2016), German Flute Festival (2017), American National Flute Association Convention (2015), Canadian Flute Convention (2015), Kulturforum Pax Christi, Krefeld, Germany (2016), Open Spaces Festival Nuremburg, Germany (2016), Tirol Easter Festival, Austria (2016), Eglise Saint-Merri, Paris (2016) and La Cote Festival, Switzerland (2016). Recent UK performances include at Iklectik, The Forge and Café Oto (London), MTIDMU Concert Series (Leicester), Fairfield Halls (Croydon), Handel House (London) and York Spring Music Festival. Concerts in 2017 included performances in Greece, Belgium, France, Japan, USA and Costa Rica.
She is a member of the Edison Ensemble and of the Rees/Roche/Pestova trio with clarinettist Heather Roche and pianist Xenia Pestova, with whom she has recently completed a residency at BEAST (Birmingham) and performed at Bangor New Music Festival and Cardiff University. Other current projects include performances and recordings of Feldman’s flute chamber music with pianist John Tilbury and percussionist Simon Allen.
Carla currently appears on 14 CDs (for rarescale records, Metier, Atopos, Capstone, Edition Troy, Heritage Records and Red Sock Records), with four more awaiting release. These include concerto recordings with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Ensemble Neumusik im Ostseeraum (Germany). She also appears on incidental music for film, TV and radio, including the 2018 release Mary Magdalene, and the BBC Radio 4 series Dear Professor Hawking. She has over 70 published compositions and arrangements (available through Tetractys), with performances of her works in the UK, USA, Canada, Japan, France and Belgium in 2017. She also works as a freelance photographer.
