The instrument I have chosen is the flute. It is included in all major orchestras. This can include a standard flute, alto flute and piccolo, which his part of the flute family. Flutes are part of the woodwind family within an orchestra. 1. Manufacturer: Woodwind and Brasswind http://www.wwbw.com/Buyer-Guides-Flute-g25079t0.wwbwThis is a comprehensive buyer’s guide for flutes. It includes a visual diagram of the parts of the flute, including the crown, foot joint and body. There is also a guide for the different kinds of flutes: intermediate, professional and artisan. The interactive component is the actual buying guide, live chat, email and purchasing cart. I choose this website because of the visual guides, which makes it easy for beginners to understand what they’re buying.
2. History: Gemeinhardt. http://www.gemeinhardt.com/connect/gemeinhardt-education/flute-history.htmlGemeinhardt is one of the most respected flute manufacturers in the world. This website includes an easy to follow history of the flute starting with 200 B.C. to the present. There is nothing outstanding about this website in terms of interactive components (except for ordering and social media) but the overall historical timeline is easy to understand and comprehensive.
3. Famous Performers (comprehensive)Music Piya: http://www.musicpiya.com/best-flute-players-in-the-world/
Any website listing the best flute players will be subjective, but after researching several of them, the same few names kept appearing on all of them. Music Piya represents some of the best flutists from around the world and does not just focus on Western or classical musicians. There is a brief history of each musician and some YouTube videos embedded in the site. It covers flutists from India, Asia, Ireland and the United States.
4. Famous performer (singular) Sir James Galway: http://jamesgalway.com/Galway is one of the most recognized flutists in the world. This site has several well-organized categories His social media feeds, including his tweets, are on the homepage along with great photos of him on tour and working with young students. The information about him as a teacher and mentor was most prominent on his site and there is a separate calendar for his visits to schools, camps and clinics.
5. Famous composer comprehensive website: Naxos.com One of the most trusted websites for research on musical works. There is a search bar where you can type in “Flute music.” In particular, I was researching flute music written by Handel as he was a prolific composer for this instrument. Once you type in key search terms, such as “Flute music by Handel” or “Handel’s flute music,” a page of links will appear listing musical works. There are over 600,000 entries for Handel flute music. There are also header links for bios and reviews for that particular composer.
6. Famous Composer: Philippe Gauberthttp://www.allmusic.com All Music is a comprehensive database of recorded music and musicians. Gaubert was known more as an interpreter/arranger of music for flute rather than an original composer. He was prolific in composing music for flute and chamber ensembles and flute and piano. There are more than 12,000 search results on this website for recordings of Gaubert’s music or his arrangements with comprehensive reviews of recordings and liner notes. There is an added photo gallery for more contemporary artists. Bios are written as an open forum similar to Wikipedia so I wouldn’t rely on biographical information from this site, but the recorded music database is reliable.
7. Repertoire - top 5 a. J.S. Bach - Partita in A minor, BWV 1013 b. Jethro Tull – Aqualung. Ian Anderson brought flute into the spotlight in the 1970s with several top selling albums. He also made a hit playing one of J. S. Bach’s bourées on the flute. c. Vivaldi - Flute Concerto in G minor, RV 439 d. Telemann - Concerto for Recorder and Flute, TWV 52 e. Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
8. Repertoire websites: The repertoire listed in #7 above came up in top searches on both of these websites. IMSPL.org– Petrucci Music Library. This website has just about every composer listed possible. It is akin to an encyclopedia of compositions. You can search by name, instrument, and genre and even by melody. A search for “flute” yielded subcategories such as alto flute, pan flute, for flute and harpsichord and just about any combination of flute and voice or flute and another instrument you could want. It’s a little difficult to figure out how the searches work as they are multilayered, but after you spend some time on the site, you can figure it out. classicsonline.com - Classics Online. This is a comprehensive classical music download website. You can search by composer, orchestra, label or musician. New releases are featured on the landing page. You can download or stream your selection. There is a featured label on the homepage and best customer reviews. This content is updated because it would be different whenever I visited the site.
9. Orchestra #1
New York Philharmonic: http://nyphil.org/
I wanted to research one US orchestra website and one European website. This site is similar to those of most top orchestras in that the content is easily organized. The calendar was a link at the top of the page rather than a visual graphic of a calendar. The New York Phil did have a matching gift challenge prominently displayed on its homepage and the “watch and listen” section had lots of archived concerts which you could listen to immediately. The photographs are stunning and eye catching. However, you have to scroll to the bottom of the homepage to see the social media icons. This may be the way the web provider set it up, but it’s nice to see social media first thing.
10. Orchestra #2 London Philharmonic: https://www.lpo.org.uk/This website had a recurring color palette that really popped and caught my attention. The calendar was laid out as a graphic rather than list and there are a lot of interactive tools such as a blog, reviews and recordings. There was no direct link to the musician’s pages and I found this to be true of the NY Philharmonic website as well. When I looked at The Philadelphia Orchestra website, there was an easy link to see a list of musicians and their bios. I would think that each major orchestra would want people to read about the musicians up front. When I typed in “flute” in the search bar, past performances and recordings came up. I liked that the social media icons were at the top of the homepage and easy to find. This website also was arranged less user friendly and not organized as well as the NY Phil page.
Works Cited
allmusic.com
wwbw.com/Buyer-Guides-Flute-g25079t0.wwbwclassicsonline.com
gemeinhardt.com/connect/gemeinhardt-education/flute-history.htmlIMSPL.org
jamesgalway.com/
lpo.org.uk/
musicpiya.com/best-flute-players-in-the-world/
naxos.com
nyphil.org/
