UNO Professor of Flute, Dr. Christine Beard recently performed at the 21st Japan Flute Convention held at the Showa University of Music in Kawasaki, Japan from August 18-20, 2023. A charter member of the International SuperFlutes Collective, this marked the ensemble’s second appearance at a Japan Flute Convention, performing a 90-minute concert of classical masterworks arranged for flute ensemble by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Gluck, J.S. Bach, and Prokofiev. For this performance, SuperFlutes included flutists from Brazil, Costa Rica, Japan, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.

The International SuperFlutes Collective is a professional flute ensemble comprised of a dozen flutists from 4 continents. In 2013, six flutists serving at the Costa Rica Flute Festival (Cara Rees of the UK; Milicia Milojevic-Bogdanovic of Serbia; Horacio Massone of Argentina; Jean-Louis Beaumadier of France; Matjaz Debelljak of Slovenia; and Christine Beard, USA) answered the call to put a recital together with less than 24 hours’ notice to fill in for a cancelled Brazilian choro concert at the National Theater in San José, Costa Rica. The following year, the same group of flutists found themselves on stage at the British Flute Convention in Manchester and a new ensemble was born. The group has since performed at four National Flute Associations in the USA, the ABRAF Brazil Flute Convention, two Japan Flute Conventions, and five Costa Rica Flute Festivals. For more information and video, visit https://superflutes.wixsite.com/home.