Flutist Joseph Monticello joins Saad in a wide ranging discussion about our time at Juilliard, Joe's interests in non-Western music, and the direction of concert music going forward.

00:00 Flutist Joseph Monticello serenades Saad's studio
00:10 Saad's eventual wife thought Joe and Saad were the same person at Juilliard
04:55 Getting in touch with our shared Lebanese roots
07:05 On "world music"
09:16 Playing the Japanese shamisen, Persian tar, and oud as a conservatory-trained flutist
16:25 Instruments crafted for you vs. factory-made instruments
20:02 Why does everyone want a gold flute?
22:10 Connecting with music via touch
24:48 Does life experience affect playing?
26:41 Why the world premiere is always a throw-away performance
30:50 Staying creatively fresh and excited about composing for specific instruments
33:25 What does honesty mean as a composer?
34:05 Why composing for orchestra is challenging
35:48 Joe's friend wrote a tough piece for him at Interlochen
39:46 The set falls apart!
40:00 Creative limitations for composers
41:10 Programming new music
44:13 What makes today's generation of composers any lesser than those before us?
46:10 Combatting reverence culture in classical music
50:20 Richard Strauss is harder than Ligeti, Bartok, and Takemitsu

Flutist Joseph Monticello’s playing has been praised by both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal as “graceful" and for being as “exciting as the singers.”

Equally at home on both modern and historical flutes, Joseph enjoys a multi-faceted career as principal flutist of Boston Baroque and assistant principal flutist with the Florida Grand Opera and Palm Beach Symphony orchestras, making his home in Miami.

A frequent performer with the genre-bending NuDeco Ensemble, Joseph has been featured on three of their commercially-released albums and has shared the stage with genre-defining artists Wyclef Jean, Tank and the Bangas, Masego, Cory Wong, Cory Henry, Luke James, and Larkin Poe.

Joseph has also performed with Les Arts Florissants, Philharmonia Baroque, The Berlin Friday Academy, One Found Sound (SF), Kaleidoscope (LA), Bach Collegium San Diego, New York Baroque Incorporated, Seraphic Fire, IlluminArts, and as principal flute of the Teatro Nuovo festival orchestra, specializing in the historically informed presentation of Bel Canto opera on period-appropriate instruments.

A fierce proponent of Japanese traditional music, Joseph has studied Nagauta and Yamatogaku shamisen in the US and in Japan, having recently been invited to perform at the National Theatre in Tokyo. As a student of these under-represented musical styles, he has previously been awarded funding by Oberlin College’s Shansi In-Asia Grant and the New York-based Friends of Flutes Foundation.

In addition to his performing career, Joseph’s passion for musical curatorship is furthered by his role as part-time Archivist for the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. In his free time, Joe enjoys searching for the holy grail of iced coffees, wherever his travels take him.
Joseph is a graduate of the Masters in Historical Performance program of The Juilliard School, Oberlin College and Conservatory, and Interlochen Arts Academy High School.

In addition to a number of original instruments dating from the 18th to 20th century, Joseph plays on a Dana Sheridan flute with additional headjoints by Salvatore Faulisi and David Chu, a Bulgheroni wood flute, a Keefe piccolo, an Eva Kingma alto flute, and traversos by Boaz Berney, Rod Cameron, Simon Polak, Keigo Takesa, Giovanni Tardino, Rudolf Tutz, and Martin Wenner.

? Joseph Monticello’s website: https://www.monticelloflute.com/

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