Millennium Centre, Cardiff
It was not necessary to be a flautist to be dazzled by the array of stunning playing at this weekend festival. While young practitioners gained wisdom from the cream of Europe's performers in masterclasses, the remarkable range of flute repertoire proved equally inspirational.
Organisers Arcomis specialise in commissioning music, so new works were a major focus, with the explosion of extended techniques, such as pitch-bending, harmonics and multiphonics – yes, producing more than one note at the same time – opening up a soundworld of mind-boggling vibrancy. But nowhere was the juxtaposition of old and new more evocative than in Sharon Bezaly's pairing of an elegant Bach Sarabande with Kalevi Aho's mercurial 21st-century Presto.
Brett Dean wrote his solo Demons for Bezaly, and her golden tone and supreme pyrotechnics were advocacy enough for its virtues, yet in creating from it a concertante work for flute and strings, the Sidori Dances, Dean has added another expressive dimension. In its premiere with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thierry Fischer, the extraordinarily beautiful playing of Adam Walker suggested this young man will be a great exponent of the instrument.
The signature recital given by Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra principal flute Walter Auer demonstrated virtuosity and a subtly-inflected singing tone and beguiling personality. Under his fingers, the premiere of Croatian composer Luna Alcalay's En Passant had a compelling intensity, connecting much more deeply than the transient quality jokingly implied in the title.
Other highlights included Rowland Sutherland's jazz, Jacques Zoon's Fauré and Michael Cox with the London Sinfonietta. In the wake of the disaster in Japan, Cox's haunting alto flute in Takemitsu's Toward the Sea III could not have been more moving.