Laura Chislett’s Flute Vox was envisaged as a kind of sequel to her 1995 collaboration with pianist Stephanie McCallum, The Flute in Orbit. More than 20 years later, the pair have released a double CD exploring more recent works by the composers featured on their first album, as well as a selection of other works.

The album is an eclectic mix of contemporary flute works, from the solid intensity of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 – a venerable 80 years old this year – to Michael Smetanin’s spritely 2015 work for flutes and mixed media, Backbone. Toru Takemitsu’s Voice kicks off the first disc, the close, dry recording highlighting Chislett’s precise technique and making audible every nuance of breath, voice and air. While this allows the listener to hear every detail of Chislett’s playing, it also robs the work of some of its haunting mystery. Along with Varèse and Takemitsu, Iranian-American composer Reza Vali is the only other non-Australian composer on the recording, his Persian Suite (Folk Songs, Set No. 12E) contributing lyricism and spirited energy. The didgeridoo-like growls and percussive vocal attacks of Zadro’s Vox Box make it a rhythmically driven tour de force for amplified bass flute and Brett Dean’s Demons is full of fire and brimstone.

The second disc opens with Edward Cowie’s piping A Charm of Australian Finches for flutes and piano. Chislett’s alto flute chirrs in the Masked Finch movement and her piccolo sparkles in Red-Eared Firetail. Rosalind Page’s Courb Dominante, inspired by Kandinsky, Schoenberg and “Saturnian sound spectra” features ethereal harmonics and multiphonics, taking its structure from Baroque dance movements. Chislett’s whistle tones suspend like celestial light over the darkness of an alto flute drone. Thomas Jones’ violin is a welcome injection of timbral variety after so much flute music – he joins Chislett for Elena Kats-Chernin’s Wedding Suite, written for Chislett and Jones on their wedding day. The ‘official’ album ends with the calming solo flute incarnation of Kats-Chernin’s Blue Silence. Gerald Glynn’s Four Episodes for solo piano, performed by McCallum, is included as bonus tracks, a tranquil coda to the recording.

Chislett’s technique is formidable, her sound is sturdy and vibrant and her command of the extended techniques required is natural and virtuosic. While there is little to bind the individual works of Flute Vox together, the recording is an important repository of Australian flute compositions (most of the works have never been recorded until now), highlighting the diversity of Australian and international flute writing.

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