Railroaded for flute choir

The Atlanta Flute Club asked me if I would be one of the conductors for the Atlanta Flute Club's Honors Flute Choir this year for the Atlanta Flute Fair and that I could choose the music performed. How could I pass up the opportunity to compose something new for flute choir?

When I write for flute I like to take advantage of all the different extended techniques that the flute has to offer, however, I knew this group of flutists were young and almost had no exposure to any extended techniques. When looking at the repertoire available, I see that most pieces that use extended techniques are for more advanced players. I wanted to compose a piece that might introduce one or two new techniques, especially since I'd have a whopping total of 4 1/2 hours to prepare the choir, and we were learning several pieces. So I kept it simple. I used 3 syllables of beatboxing (ch, ki, ts) and a pitch bend.

The end result was "Railroaded" for flute choir. The piece is about 3 minutes long, and the group had a good time learning it even if it was all new. I feel the piece works great for any group at any level looking to try out some extended techniques. You can give a listen to a recording, watch a video on how to perform the techniques and purchase the sheet music as a PDF here: http://www.spottedrocket.com/Railroaded.html