Carla Rees

Carla studied flute and composition at the Royal College of Music, where her passion for performing new music was ignited. Her teachers included Graham Mayger, Simon Channing, Robert Dick, Timothy Salter and Edwin Roxburgh. Her PhD focused on the use of extended techniques for Kingma System alto and bass flute through a series of collaborations with composers.

In 2003 she formed the contemporary music ensemble rarescale, with whom she appears regularly at international festivals and concert series. Other collaborations include improvised interdisciplinary work with artist Caroline Wright and an exploration of telematic performance systems with composer Scott L Miller.

Carla’s passion for the development of recital repertoire has resulted in the creation of several hundred new works for low flutes, including pieces by Claes Biehl, Stephen Davismoon, Simon Emmerson, Robert Fokkens, Ben Gaunt, Alexander Goehr, Sungji Hong, Daniel Kessner, Nicola LeFanu, Florence Anna Maunders, Scott L Miller, Patrick Nunn, David Bennett Thomas, Sohrab Uduman, Scott Wilson and Elizabeth Winters, among others.

Alongside her Kingma System flutes, she also performs on baroque flutes and researches the use of the baroque flute as a vehicle for new music.

An experienced recording artist, she has appeared on over 30 CDs (including for NMC, Metier, Delphian, Divine Art, Atopos, Heritage and Edition Troy), with recordings including concertos with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Ensemble Neumusik im Ostseeraum (Germany) and many world premieres. She also appears on incidental music for film, video games, television and radio. She is also a composer and award-winning arranger of music for flutes with more than 100 published editions. Her 2016 work, Nightsong, has become an established part of the solo piccolo repertoire with multiple international performances and a broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

She has been Editor of Pan, the Journal of the British Flute Society since 2017, and is Director of Tetractys Publishing, a company which specialises in new works for low flutes.

Carla is an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher with wide-ranging experience in Higher Education. In 2015, she designed a fully online practical music degree for the Open College of the Arts, where she continues to lead the Music Department, and she has taught the flute at HE level since 2006. She has served on competition juries for the British Flute Society, International Low Flutes Society, Japan Flute Association, British Composer Awards and the Royal Philharmonic Society.

SUPERVISION

Carla welcomes PhD proposals in areas including musical instrument innovations, the development, exploration and documentation of extended techniques, composer-performer collaboration, the use of historical instruments for contemporary repertoire and contemporary performance practices. As an examiner, she has been involved with MRes and Doctoral projects at the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), University of Nottingham and Goldsmiths University of London.

Selected Publications

Vear C, Rees C, Stephenson A. Nautilus: a case study in how a digital score can transform creativity. Tempo. 2023;77(303):33-42. doi:10.1017/S0040298222000791

Selected recent CDs:

• The Last Time I Died – Ailis ni Riain (NMC 2023) NMCD270

• Stop Motion Music – Neil Tomas Smith (Dark Inventions 2023)

• Sam Hayden: Solos/Duos (Metier 2023) MSV28622

• The Storyteller - Nickos Harizanos (Phasma Music 2022) Phasma 050

• Pilgrim of Curiosity - Oliver Iredale Searle (Delphian 2021) DCD34270

• 05 IX – rarescale & Scott L Miller (rarescale records 2021) rr006

• For Christian Wolff - John Tilbury (Atopos 2016) ATP025

• Sauna - Tomi Raisanen/Neue Musik im Ostseeraum (Edition Troy 2016) EDTCD 005