I enjoy writing for flute and admire its agility and the sheer quality of its sound.
I have featured it in much of my chamber ensemble works (including two quintets). Flute has a prominent role in all the tone poems, and in four of my six symphonies, for instance carrying the melody of the last movement of Pure, Cool (Water) – Symphony No. 4.
Bubble-Up Rag was commissioned in 2003 by Professor Mary Lee Cochran, flute instructor at Kansas State University; it has been recorded by Immanuel Davis, partnered by Nanette Kaplan Solomon at the piano. Of my flute solo works it may be the most elaborate – and was written to be fun!
The nine-minute piece is both quite decorated and lively, then soulful by turns. Much of it was composed on the fly, when I was travelling, so it ‘bops’. Bubble-Up Rag’s tempo clocked to the turn-signal on my sedan as I drove back-and-forth to my University of Minnesota teaching.
For the final note, be sure to overblow the very highest E.
— Judith Lang Zaimont
Reach the composer at: Composer888888@gmail.com and visit www.judithzaimont.com for more on her works
Performance on Youtube:
The score is available at Jeanné, Inc.: www.jeanne-inc.com/products/zaimont-bubble-up-rag-flute-piano. List price: $17.00
Credit: Judith Lang Zaimont, ’Bubble-Up’ Rag for flute and piano, copyright ©2005 by Jeanné, Inc. Used by permission.
Publisher’s Permission Note
Credit: Judith Lang Zaimont, ’Bubble-Up’ Rag for flute and piano, copyright ©2005 by Jeanné, Inc. Used by permission.
Notes about the score
‘Bubble-Up’ Rag is Zaimont’s most elaborated interpretation of ragtime’s five-section rondo form. Each of the five principal sections is presented in a rounded tripartite statement, with extended transitional music that occasionally startles via modernist edginess or blurring of the expected sectional boundaries. Its catchy, extroverted tune was composed in the composer’s car during rush-hour commutes, with the original tempo clocked to the auto’s turn-signal beat.
See: https://jeanne-inc.com/products/zaimont-bubble-up-rag-flute-piano