21st century
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
20th century
21st century
Solo repertoire
Piccolo
Alto flute
Bass flute
Louke Phyllis Avidan
Adler, Samuel
Albert, Adrienne
Amlin, Martin
Arnauts, Dimitri
Bacri, Nicolas
Baksa, Robert
Balter, Marcos
Beal, Jeff
Bilotta, John
Borisova-Ollas, Victoria
Bullard, Janice Maille
Bunch, Kenji
Carter, Elliott
Chamberlain, Nicole
Chyrzynski, Marcel
Clarke, Ian
Coleman, Valerie
Connesson, Guillaume
Costa Roldán, Eduardo
Cueto, Daniel
Dalbavie, Marc-André
Daugherty, Michael
Dehnhard, Tilmann
Desenne, Paul
Dorff, Daniel
Egger, Fabian Johannes
Eggert, Kenneth
Firšt, Nenad
Furrer, Beat
Garrop, Stacy
Ghidoni, Armando
Gibb, Charles
Hailstork, Adolphus
Harberg, Amanda
Hersh, Howard
Hoover, Katherine
Igudesman, Aleksey
Ittzés, Gergely
Kernis, Aaron Jay
Khoury, Houstaf
Kukal, Ondřej
León, Tania
Lias, Stephen
Liebermann, Lowell
Lindberg, Christian
Linthicum-Blackhorse, William
Louke, Phyllis Avidan
Magalif, Eugene
Mitchell, Jonathan
Monroe, Ervin
Mower, Mike
Mucha, Geraldine
Mulleman, Tim
Ornstein, Maarten
Pann, Carter
Panufnik, Roxanna
Pärt, Arvo
Pattillo, Greg
Penman, Katrina
Petrič, Ivo
Price, William
Pritsker, Gene
Pucihar, Blaž
Ran, Shulamit
Rea, Stephanie
Rotaru, Doina
Rozman, Anže
Schocker, Gary
Schwantner, Joseph
Sciarrino, Salvatore
Seif, Sami
Serebrier, José
Skipworth, Lachlan
Sollberger, Harvey
Somma, Victor
Uébayashi, Yuko
Vasks, Pēteris
Widmann, Jörg
Witt, Carl
Woolf, Randall
Yi, Chen
Spirit of the Stallion for solo flute
Spirit of the Stallion for solo flute
Phyllis Avidan Louke: Spirit of the Stallion for solo flute was written in 2014 and dedicated to Rose-Marie Gauthier, a flutist and colleague of the composer. It premiered at the 2014 National Flute Association (NFA) Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
The piece is designed to capture the powerful and majestic essence of a wild horse through a series of contrasting musical sections: The Power, The Grace, and The Freedom. The work utilizes harmonics, flutter tonguing, and bent notes (pitch slides) to mimic the "wild" and organic sounds associated with the stallion’s spirit.
In 2014, Phyllis Avidan Louke was firmly established as a leading specialist in flute ensemble repertoire and pedagogical solo music.
During this period, Louke’s style moved toward "cinematic" solo writing: pieces that use the flute to tell a specific story or depict a character. "Spirit of the Stallion" was part of a broader effort to provide intermediate and advanced flutists with concert repertoire that uses extended techniques (such as harmonics and breathy attacks) in an accessible, tonal context.
Eliza Shephard (flute), 2021
Spirit of the Stallion
Louke Phyllis Avidan
Phyllis Avidan Louke (1954) is an American flutist, pedagogue, and composer based in Portland, Oregon. She is widely regarded as a leading authority on flute choir repertoire and pedagogical methods for woodwinds.
Raised in New Jersey, she attended the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), earning a Bachelor of Arts in Music. There she studied flute under Burnette Dillon and Roger Stevens, and refined her compositional voice through studies with the renowned Czech-American composer Tomas Svoboda.
Louke gained recognition with her "Flute 100" series (Flute 101, 102, 103), co-authored with Patricia George. These texts are staples in collegiate flute pedagogy for their "chunking" method of technical development. Her compositions, such as Spirit of the Stallion (2014) and Echoes in the Wind, are noted for their programmatic nature. She often incorporates extended techniques—like harmonics, pitch bends, and whistle tones—into tonal, accessible frameworks to bridge the gap between traditional and avant-garde literature.