Jean-Michel DAMASE - Flute Concerto
Dutton CDLX7309
“The flute concerto, also wonderfully written for the instrument is given an equally marvelous performance by Anna Noakes; a reading of such quality as to defy criticism”
International Record Review
"The Flute Concerto has a magical fluttery Allegretto, a shaded mystical Andante with a most touching tune and a flighty Allegro. Everything is most transparently orchestrated and the solo and ensemble playing in this ... is well up to the very best standards."
"Anna Noakes delivers a dazzling performance, - with a flute tone of technicolour brilliance and intensity. She brings a huge palette of colour to this stylish work; with beautifully crafted phrases, steeped in elegance, energy, and emotion.
She will win many fans for the Damase Flute Concerto in this superb recording on the Dutton label, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates."
Evelyn Grant, Presenter RTE Lyric FM
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Richard II - Incidental Music/Songs of Travel/Suite de Ballet/Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes
Epoch - Modern classic | CDLX7359
“Yates support is as bright as a button both here and for flautist Anna Noakes in the miniature Suite de Ballet that VW composed around 1913 for Louis Fleury (the dedicatee of Debussy’s Syrinx)”
Gramophone
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Fire Island
Flute & Piano, Flute Ensemble. Epoch CDLX7210
These world premiere recordings by Martin Yates, provide a spacious arena for Anna Noakes' technical and lyrical command.....Mastered effortlessly.....spine-tingling rhythmic excitement.“
Pan Magazine
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First Milonga Last Tango
Flute & Guitar. Quartz TZ2031
World premiere recordings...
A passionate melancholy, athletic and challenging. A fascinating collection, beautifully played by the two sure-handed soloists.
Pan Magazine
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Damase - Music for Flute, Harp & Strings
His Sonata for flute and harp, Quintet, Trio and Early One Morning Variations all feature the flute (the highly sympathetic Anna Noakes) most winningly, and the rest of the ensemble on this ASV disc also play beautifully.
Gramophone Critics Choice
The performances are wholly sympathetic and refreshing (Anna Noakes is a superb flautist) with the ensemble playing most sensitive and integrated. The recording too is beautifully balanced in a warm acoustic without making transparency of detail. This will almost certainly be in my next Critic's Choice.
Gramophone Reviews Gallery
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The Fibonacci Sequence plays Poulenc
The Sonata for flute and piano, brilliantly performed by flautist Anna Noakes and pianist Kathron Sturrock
MUSICIAN
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Fantasie for Flute and Harp, Anna Noakes and Gillian Tingay
ASV White Line CDWHL2101
Anna Noakes' timbre and natural feeling for a phrase are very winning and she and Gillian Tingay make a strikingly well-matched partnership in this entertaining collection. The disc includes flowing, coolly beautiful Fauré (meltingly phrased by Anna Noakes)…
Gramophone
…the performances contained herein are beautiful. ASV's sound is thoroughly lifelike and realistic, and overall one will look high and low for a more satisfying recital program than this.
Fanfare
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Jolivet: Chamber Music for Flute
Techniques such as flutter-tonguing and rolling for glissando effect permeate this music and are most effectively used in the substantial Sonata (1958). Noakes and Sturrock five an appropriately savage rendition of Violent, the final movement.Noakes is brilliant in the opening movement as she shifts between and in-your-face frenzy one moment and an earthly magic the next. Her chunky low register suits the angular Stabile, but it's the climactic Calme where flute and ensemble work best together. Beautiful.
Kate Sherriff, BBC Music Magazine
The Suite en concert (1965) counts as André Jolivet's Second Flute Concerto. Here it receives a splendid performance from Anna Noakes.…Anna Noakes proves a most committed advocate…
Gramophone
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Flute and Harp, Beyond the Dark, Anna Noakes and Gillian Tingay
Guild GMCD7202
It has been a real treat listening to this CD over the past few weeks and, the more I listen, the more impressed I become. Noakes and Tingay are musicians of the highest calibre, who here present both serious repertoire and one or two lollipops with a degree of passion and authority not frequently hear.
Most noteworthy are William Alwyn's Naiades and Dave Heath's Beyond the Dark, both played with breathtaking virtuosity and skill. Even the most demanding passages demonstrate exquisite control and clarity at all extremes.
However, the technical prowess is no (for me) the CD's most engaging feature. Rather, the captivating ability of the duo to communicate essence of the music, and draw the listener into its very core, transporting one beyond the initial 'first impression', causes me to marvel at this work of art. The rich palette of expression and tone colours employed by both instrumentalists leas us convincingly from the tender and poignant to the passionate and ferocious, which is surely a hallmark of great art - to of beyond oneself to the world of the music's creator. Thus, the CD's title suggests the essence of the recording as a whole.Also of particular note is the Harty In Ireland, whose Gallic charm is even more appealing with the harp than with the usual piano - wonderful.
Joanna Todd, Pan Magazine
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South American Flute Music. Anna Noakes
KCLCD2027
This is a sparkling record, well worth possessing. Much of the music will be unfamiliar to most people and with the variety of collaborators the attention is stimulated throughout. Anna Noakes has a commanding technique on her flute and a flexible and well controlled sound which she uses to great advantage.
Ginastera's Impresiones de la Puna, published in 1942, for flute and string quartet is a lovely work which is worth hearing more often, though I found his duo for flute and oboe, which follows, even more captivating. The players (Marios Argiros on oboe) blended well and gave a sensitive and, where necessary, a crisp account of the work, perhaps my favourite band on the disc.
If all history were as enjoyable as Histoire du Tango, by Astor Piazolla, we should all be historians' The four pieces for flute and guitar were performed with emotions ranging through delicacy, passion to enthusiastic excitement. Worth having the recording for these. Anna Noakes has chosen her collaborators well - a contribute much to the success of the performances.
British Flute Society Journal 'Pan'
It was enterprising of Anna Noakes to put together this programme of mostly little-known music, especially the two works by Ginastera, which I believe are new to the catalogue: the rest have previously been recorded by William Bennett, and some by Judith Hall, but these new performances are highly competitive, Ignore the insert commentary's statement that in his chamber music Ginastera "more concentratedly than in any other genre felt free to experiment with serialism, microtones and other radical methods of expression" (the writer clearly displays no knowledge of his operas); but, in any case, of the present works the 1934 Impresiones de la Puna (for flute and string quartet) is entirely diatonic - the first two movements respectively melancholy pastoral and wistful, the third a distinctive lively triple-rhythm dance - and the 1945 Duo for flute and oboe is notable for the pleasurable contrapuntal cavortings in its outer movements.
Anna Noakes shows herself to be an accomplished, positive player of spirit and sensibility with a tone capable of quite a wide range of colouration and dynamics, and she has chosen and number of excellent partners (of whom, without being invidious, the oboist and bassoonist deserve special mention) for the diverse concerted pieces on his disc; it has been recorded with admirable sound and with impeccable balance between the various instruments. The Histoire du Tango by Piazzolla (once a Boulanger pupil) at 20 minutes outstays its welcome, but the Villa-Lobos pieces contain much that is attractive as well as intriguing or experimental (like the Vivo of his Jet Whistle), and his many rhythmic complexities fail to upset the security of ensemble (as they have in some other recording).
Gramophone, L.S.
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Martin Yates, St John's, Smith Square
Martin Yates is a young musician who has made his name conducting musicals the West End, latterly Miss Saigon. But he is also a composer, one who firmly turns his face against avant-garde complexity on the one hand, minimalism on the other. Instead he fluently exploits a gift for easy lyricism and deftly spices it in well-crafted writing.
In aid of the London Lighthouse, this complete concert devoted to his music brought a second main focus. All five of the chosen works involved the flute, and inspired virtuoso performances from the young flautist Anna Noakes. She was particularly impressive in the works with piano alone, and easy-going Sonatina, a fun piece, and a more challenging Sonata, Fire Island, both with john Alley as a brilliant partner. Otherwise there was a deftly-written Sonata for Flute and Harp, One Summer, and a jolly little waltz suite, Café Music, made up of pieces written for the theatre.
The Guardian