Whistles to Flute in "Come From Away" the Musical

 Dear Flutelovers,

 I followed an interesting flutey topic online this week about the myriad wooden flutes and penny whistles required for the musical "Come From Away". It seems the required number of instruments are so overwhelming (see below for the list) that some flutists might even considering renting the set of penny whistles and wooden flutes required to play in this musical! (To purchase them would be thousands of dollars.)

 Read the comments at Bret Pimental's blog if you're curious. And here's the traditional Irish flutist is, (who is now offering sets for rent to help out), who wrote the flute's "book" for the show, Ben Powers showing the needed whistle set:

Ben Powers shows his flute and whistle collection for playing the show: (video)

To play "Come From Away" the musical you would require: Irish flute in D, Irish flute in B-flat, Boxwood flute in D, pennywhistle in low A, pennywhistle in low C, pennywhistle in low C-sharp, pennywhistle in low D, pennywhistle in low E, pennywhistle in low F, pennywhistle in F-sharp, pennywhistle in G, pennywhistle in A, pennywhistle in B-flat, pennywhistle in C, pennywhistle in D, pennywhistle in E, pennywhistle in F, Uilleann pipes.

Gadzukes man!

And do go, if you're curious, and hear the show's entire recorded sound track here to get an idea of the flute's parts: (video on youtube)

Sadly, at the blog where this is discussed you see cries for help like this:

"I’m very confused by the whistle part and was wondering how far I could condense it. I’m 17 years old and this is just for a school musical so I don’t have access to basically all of the instruments except for a basic flute, recorder, and tin whistle in D. I can’t figure out if the whistles are transposition or not and the necessity of most of these whistles. I’m very much not an expert and I’m scared that I’m not going to be able to play it in time for the show five months away. Does anyone have any advice about what I can condense and what keys are accurate to the musical since I am also confused as to why the C whistles appear to be in a different key to my C flute? Help very much needed."

________________

Well guys?

How many flutey readers can guess what I'm thinking right now? 

Would it be:

a) the original sound of the Irish whistles and flutes is so important to preserve, I do hope that there will be lots of sets of rentable instruments for all future high school productions of this musical and time enough for each person to learn all those instruments (and stretch their fingers too!)

or

b) sadly, although it would have been  nice to utilize the original instruments, for the sake of those who cannot learn them in time for the show, it would probably be smart to transpose the book now. It could perhaps use just one penny whistle, soprano/alto recorder maybe and a C-flute, maybe piccolo? It could be a great educational bonus to also have clear charts of the Irish ornaments and how to execute them.

What do you think I'd choose?

After all I'm the sass-meister who re-wrote the rather stupidly difficult Prokofiev flute and piccolo parts for the fourth movement of the Classical Symphony so that you can learn to play it in a month, instead of taking ten or more years to master it. Oh you can call me rebel without a clue" but I like to get the job done without losing a kidney. :>)

So please feel free to comment at length on this one. I'd like to poll the flute community as to how to make this work for us all. Afterall, we've lived our lifetimes faced with pages of alternate fingerings required because composers who do not play the flute force us to do the impossible.

Why can't we request parts that don't give us crazy-making extra-added labour while the composers are still ALIVE???

Lots more points of view from people who've actually played the "Come From Away" flute part here at Bret's blog. Thanks to him for all that info. collected in one place. Just scroll down to read the comments below his original post at the link above.

Please comment on this fine fine topic if you have an opinion! Love to know what you think. Really.

Best, Jen