Internatial SWISS PANFLUTE Seminar

The Panflute students have fun together playing their favorite music in a friendly and familiar atmosphere.. Learn from Masters like Damian Luca, Simion Radu, Vasile Iovu or Cornel Pana.

Report Panfluteseminar 2008

A wonderfull weekend in Winkel

From 10 till 12 October the International Swiss Panflute Seminar was held in Winkel near Zürich for the 8th time. For me it was the 5th time that I was there. Since Landgasthof “Breitti” were the course was held was fully booked, I stayed in Gasthof “Hecht”. Most of the students come back. So, after the first time, you will be meeting friends again. As usual, it was organized by Michael Dinner and Dan Herford.

Maybe you know that the organizers always invite a guest teacher. In other years they had invited for example Damian Luca, Cornel Pana and Radu Simion. This time it was Vasile Iovu from Moldavia. He had been there once before and the whole group was clearly glad to see him again!
Normally, the weekend starts Friday afternoon with Michael's welcoming speech and everybody taking his turn to play a piece. This last thing is to make it easier for the teachers to define who is going to be in which group. However, this time it was possible to book a private class for the Friday morning.  So I had a private class with Dan. It is something I  can recommend. It is a good way of getting to know what are your weaknesses!
As far as the playing in the afternoon is concerned, you will definitely not be the only one who is nervous! I always am, even though I know that I have no real reason to be. I mean I am not a good player, but they are not likely to send anybody home, even if you make a mess of it! Like I did.
When everybody has played, it is time for having a meal together and after that: more music. You know, some students cannot resist the temptation to play and the teachers certainly can't.  The others love to listen.
On Saturday morning we all came together. All the students were informed in which group they had been placed.
My group started with Michael. We started with a lot of warming up. Michael, I will do my best to keep my flute straight! After the exercises we started practicing some of the easier pieces for the final concert.
After lunch we had a third hour with Michael  and  three hours with Dan. Dan and Michael are quite different characters, but both good and patient teachers.
With Dan you must be prepared for hard work, but you are likely to learn a lot.
Dan, I will do my best not to take air at places where I shouldn't! But bad habits are often difficult to get rid of.
This time apart from Dan, Vasile Iovu and me several other persons stayed either in hotel Breitti or in hotel Hecht. And even more stayed for the evening meal and the festival after!
On Sunday, Vasile Iovu was teaching my group. His classes are special too. Did you know that he has written a book “Metoda de nai”? It is in Romanian but it contains a lot of exercises and many melodies. You can use it even if you do not speak Romanian. Apart from our Romanian teachers, Ciril is the only one in the course who has learned Romanian.
When speaking about the final concert, Maestro Iovu told us not to worry. He said you can compare this with a philharmonic orchestra. There there are always a lot of violinists. So a player who gets lost can stop playing and the audience will hardly hear it. The weaker players can hide behind the stronger ones. I always get lost somewhere. In his classes we were also glad to have our interpreter Virginia Gaus! She is a Romanian painter and professional interpreter who lives in Switzerland. You could see that she loved to do this. And she learned a lot too!
By the way, Vasile Iovu does have a certain knowledge of French, but he is a bit out of practice. No doubt that language is not used much in Moldavia.
In the afternoon came together to practice for the concert. Usually all the tunes in the course-book are played, but don't worry. You only have to play where you feel at ease! And, as said, you can hide behind the better players. During the first part of the concert , the students played assisted by the teachers and by Kiyomi Higaki on the piano. We ended with “La vie en rose”.
The second part of the concert is for the teachers who play solo's. For example: Vasile Iovu plays his favorite doina. Dan plays another Romanian piece. Michael and Kiyomi play classical music.
It ended with us all playing “La vie en rose” again.
Of course the audience consists for a large part of family and friends of the participants.
Virginia invited a colleague of hers, who clearly liked it too!
After dinner it was a really jolly party again!
Thank you very much Michael, Dan, Maestro Iovu, Virginia, Kiyomi, and of course all my co-students. See you in the next year!

last update 1. November 2008