About  Light in the Corner
Kate Steinbeck, flutes • Byron Hedgepeth, percussion, vibes and marimba

James Galway writes:

I have to tell you how much I liked your CD...Gareth Farr's Kembang Suling is really good...especially the last movement trip to india. The Hansen piece is just lovely and beautifully played.

Your playing through-out the album is truly touching...I can say honestly that this is a CD that would appeal to all flute players and inspire them to look into a repertoire not often explored.

Well done, Kate! I look forward to your next CD with pleasure.

Best wishes!
Jimmy

Richard Stagg, PAN, The Journal of the British Flute Society, March 2005

Kate Steinbeck plays on a modern wooden Boehm flute by Chris Abell. Her style is robust and confident, at times calling to mind the native North American flute, at other times a little reminiscent of Peter Lukas Graf. The music she has chosen to play is a refreshing mixture of styles – Oriental pastiche, jazz, Negro spirituals, tender waltzes and exploratory original compositions - all well prepared and enjoyable to listen to.

For me, the highlight of the disc is the Concerto No. 1 for flute and percussion by Lou Harrison, in three short movements full of somber but lithe cutting-edge invention and atmosphere. Lou Harrison, who taught at Black Mountain [College] in North Carolina in the 1940s and died in 2003, clearly remains a composer worthy of serious interest.

By way of touching base, we are also given a movement from Bach’s Sonata in E minor, accompanied by the marimba, which is more than capable of holding a candle to the harpsichord lute-stop.

This disc has earned a place in my drawing-room cabinet, thus saving it from languishing with many others in the loft or garage. What more can I say? I keenly look forward to further chances of hearing Kate Steinbeck’s playing.

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