"AULINO" five pieces for piccolo

Gabriel Mălăncioiu: "AULINO" five pieces for piccolo was written in 2023.
The piece is part of his ongoing "Musiventurous" series, which consists of solo compositions for various orchestral instruments designed to explore specific instrumental techniques in a "musiventurous" way - a playful term combining music and adventurous.
The "Aulino" title itself likely refers to a diminutive of the Greek aulos, an ancient wind instrument, playfully referencing the piccolo as a small pipe. The entire series uses similar playful, hybrid titles.
The work was not a traditional commission but was "revised by" Haika Lübcke, the Solo Piccolo player at the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and a lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts. This suggests a close collaboration where she helped refine the work for performance.
The piece consists of five movements, each of which describes the technical challenges the performer will face:
1. PICO-DICO, AGOGICO: Focuses on agogics (tempo variation) and irregular accents.
2. TREMO-GOULASH: Tests fine transitions between tremolos and trills.
3. UPS & HICKUPS: Uses instrumental theatre and the frullato (flutter-tonguing) technique.
4. PASTORALIX: Employs glissando techniques and proportional notation.
5. GLANCE + DANCE = CROMANCE: Combines played and sung pitches, irregular rhythms, and an ornamented dance style.