Friday, May 28, 2010

Expressive Teaching: The legacy of Alain Marion

Alain Marion (1938-1998) was a protege of Joseph and Jean-Pierre Rampal and himself became one of the most brilliant and influential flute teachers of the 20th century.  I had the pleasure to study flute with Alain Marion for six years, including two years as his private flute student in Paris, and the impact he had upon my playing and teaching was enormous.  Now, I am able to share some of his remarkable teaching with you.

You see, when I was Alain Marion's student in Paris, I recorded my lessons onto a portable cassette tape machine. After his unexpected death in 1998, I thought it would be too difficult to hear the recordings, so I stored them in a shoe box in my basement. In 2008 with the 10-year anniversary of his death approaching, I finally decided to listen to the recordings and what I discovered was an incredible document of Alain Marion's teaching. I have spent the past year digitizing, transcribing, and translating these recordings so that the rest of the world (that means YOU) could benefit from these lessons just as I did in 1995-1997. 

I hope you will take a moment to click the links on this page where you will be able to listen to several recordings of my lessons, download the lesson transcripts, and read some articles I have written which analyze Alain Marion's teaching methods.  Please share this information with your friends and colleagues as these are, to my knowledge, the only existing and publicly available recordings of Alain Marion's teaching. 

Download Lesson Transcriptions and Translations to accompany the audio examples!


Expressive Teaching, the Legacy of Alain Marion by Nina Perlove, as published in Pan Magazine, September, 2008, pp. 39-42.


Une pédagogie de la flûte expressive : L’HERITAGE D’ALAIN MARION 
par Nina Perlove; traduction française par Philippe François

A Tribute to Alain Marion by Nina Perlove (partially published in The Flutist Quarterly, Fall, 1998).

The French Flute School by Nina Perlove, Windplayer Magazine #60
See photos of Alain by Pryor Dodge.
Suggested Reading: 
The Bel Canto Flute by Sheryl Cohen.



Alain Marion (1938-1998) 
Born on Christmas day, 1938 in Marseille, France, Alain Marion studied flute with Joseph and Jean-Pierre Rampal, who went on to become Marion’s mentor and life-long friend.  In 1961 he won the Geneva Competition and subsequently held solo flute positions in the Paris Orchestra, Orchestra of Radio France, French National Orchestra, and Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble Intercontemporain.  He traveled the world giving concerts and masterclasses and from 1977 until his death taught at the Paris Conservatory.  With Rampal, he spent summers teaching at the renowned Summer Music Academy in Nice, France and his former students are among the most celebrated flutists today.

2 comments:

  1. links are not working

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  2. Dear Anonymous, thanks for letting me know and they should all be working now but if you still have problems, please let me know.
    Regards,
    Nina

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