Alena Walentin (flute) & Ian Pace (piano): Lunchtime Recital

Award-winning flautist Alena Walentin, alongside pianist Ian Pace, presents a lunchtime recital built around York Bowen's flute sonata (1946), a work coloured by French lyricism and Bowen's own skill as a pianist, which has become a major work in the flute repertoire since its recent revival. The programme also includes Walentin's own arrangements of Vitali's striking Chaconne, beloved of violinists Heifetz, Oistrakh and Menuhin, and Rachmaninoff's Elegie, from the Morceaux de fantaisie, op. 3.

Programme

• Tomaso Antonio Vitali (arr. Walentin), Chaconne in G minor
• Edwin York Bowen, Sonata for flute and piano, op. 120 (1946)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff (arr. Walentin), Elegie, op. 3 no. 1 (1892)

Alena Walentin is a concert flautist, an Altus Artist and Yeomen Artist of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. She is a recipient of numerous prizes, including 1st prizes at the British Flute Society’s Competitions, International Flute Competition “Friedrich Kuhlau” and Royal Academy of Music flute competition. She has also won several prestigious awards including the Worshipful Company of Musicians Award, the Hattori Foundation Award, The Leverhulme Trust Award, The Philharmonia MMSF Award and the “Wolfson Foundation Award”. In 2014 Alena became an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, receiving an honorary award for her contribution to music.

Alena teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Junior Royal Academy of Music, City, University of London and at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Her orchestral playing includes appearances as principal flute with the Hallé Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, at the Royal Opera House and many others, and she has given solo and chamber recitals across the world and is represented worldwide with the agency Granvig Artists.