The CSO’s Jennifer Gunn keen to take a solo turn in Musgrave’s ‘Piccolo Play’

Unlike the violin, cello or even the flute, the piccolo hasn’t traditionally gotten much attention as a solo instrument, but Jennifer Gunn is among the exponents of the instrument who are seeking to change this situation. “I think it’s coming into its own,” she said. 

Gunn, who holds the CSO’s Dora and John Aalbregtse Piccolo Chair, served as soloist for the ensemble’s June 2019 performances of Antonio Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto in C Major, RV 444, and the CSO’s premiere of Ken Benshoof’s Concerto in Three Movements for Piccolo and Orchestra — the Seattle-based composer’s fourth work for the instrument.

And Gunn will take centerstage again Oct. 3-4, when she joins debuting guest conductor Daniela Candillari and the CSO in Piccolo Play by celebrated Scottish composer Thea Musgrave, who turned 97 in May.

Musgrave, who has lived in the United States since her 1971 marriage to violist and opera conductor Peter Mark, has written an array of symphonic, choral and chamber works, as well as 11 operas, including Mary, Queen of Scots (1977). The latter is being revived in a new co-production by the English National Opera and San Francisco Opera. 

“I know Thea is delighted that it’s a woman conducting a woman’s work with a woman soloist,” Gunn said of the CSO’s upcoming performances of Piccolo Play.

Appointed during the music directorship of Daniel Barenboim (1991-2006), Gunn marked her 20th anniversary as a CSO member in June. “I felt like the first couple of years were pretty slow,” said Gunn, who formerly was the assistant principal flute of the Louisville Orchestra. “But I think that was because I was learning repertoire, and it was pretty overwhelming with the schedule. I honestly have to say that I just cannot believe it’s been 20 years. I don’t feel like I’m old enough to have been in the orchestra 20 years. It’s gone really fast, and it’s been quite an adventure.”

She is “super-excited” about the appointment of Klaus Mäkelä, the Finnish conductor who has bolted to the top of symphonic world in lightning fashion. Until he fully assumes his duties in September 2027 as the CSO’s 11th music director, he is serving as music director designate. He leads four sets of concerts at Symphony Center in 2025/26, as well as an American tour, including his first appearance with the ensemble at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

“I feel like we have been so blessed with amazing musicians at the helm of this ship,” Gunn said. “It’s incredible. And I feel like Klaus is a natural progression from all the music directors before him, and he is going to be an amazing next step for the orchestra.”

“I know Thea [Musgrave] is delighted that it’s a woman conducting a woman’s work with a woman soloist,” says Jennifer Gunn of the CSO’s upcoming performances of Piccolo Play.

Gunn made her flute solo debut on CSO’s MusicNOW series in Shirish Korde’s Nesting Cranes in 2007; a year later, on the CSO’s main subscription series, she served as piccolo soloist under guest conductor Harry Bicket in Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Major (RV 443), the most famous of the composer’s three concertos for the instrument.

When Cristina Rocca, the CSO’s vice president for artistic administration, invited her to return as a soloist for the Oct. 3-4 concerts, Gunn suggested several possible works for the occasion, and Piccolo Play was at the top of the list. The 14-minute piece was originally written in 1989 for piccolo and piano. The National Flute Association, to mark its 50th anniversary, asked Musgrave to arrange the work with string accompaniment. Gunn premiered the orchestral version, with acclaimed guest conductor Leonard Slatkin and members of the Chicago Philharmonic, at the flute association’s 2022 national convention, which was in Chicago.

Because Musgrave was not able to travel to Chicago for either the rehearsal or the performance, Gunn played through the entire work and discussed it during Zoom calls with Musgrave and her husband. “She is a fascinating lady, and it was a joy to work through every corner of the piece with her and her husband, Peter,” Gunn said.

All the descriptive titles of the work’s seven movements, such as “The Enchantress” or “The Butterflies,” are drawn from harpsichord pieces by Baroque-era French composer François Couperin. “In each movement,” Musgrave wrote in her accompanying notes, “the piccolo is the protagonist of the title, and the piano [or, in this case, the orchestra] provides the ‘setting’ or the background.”

In the second movement, “The Amphibian,” the piccolo is the frog, and the orchestra represents the water into which it jumps from one lily pad to the next. The piccolo is the alarm clock, and the orchestra plays the role of the person trying to sleep in the fifth movement, “The Alarm Clock.”

The musical idea for “The Noise of War,” the sixth movement, was suggested by Edouard Manet’s famous painting, “The Fifer” (1866), which depicts an anonymous regimental fifer in the Spanish army against a blank gray background.

“Here both instruments play march music,” Musgrave wrote, “with the piano [orchestra] also suggesting the bass drum and the snare drum accompaniment. The combination of different marches becomes increasingly anarchic, and innocence [suggested by the portrait of the fifer] is overwhelmed. The end is silence with distant echoes of the Dies Irae.”

Although Piccolo Play is a contemporary piece, which can be a daunting prospect for some listeners, Gunn makes it clear that this piece is not in any way off-putting. “The way she uses the piccolo is very easy to digest,” Gunn said. “I’m staying within the belly of the [music] staff quite a bit — only getting up to screechy territory in the cadenza movement, which is ‘The Butterflies.’ ”

Gunn believes that the work’s orchestrated version provides a richer and thicker textural complement to piccolo than the original piano line. Because the orchestra is very small for this work — just 15 strings — she believes it is very well balanced and does not overshadow the piccolo during any part of this piece, even though much of the writing is in the lower portion of the instrument’s range, where it has less projection.

Gunn believes Benshoof’s concerto and Piccolo Play are two first-rate examples of the increasing number of solo vehicles that have been written specifically for the piccolo in the last 20 years. “The piccolo world is really lucky right now,” she said. “We’ve got quite a few really stellar piccolo players, not only in this country, but all over Europe, and everyone is really trying to promote this instrument as a soloistic instrument and something that people should be excited about concertos being written for.”

As much as she is looking forward to stepping out from her usual place in the orchestra and taking a turn in the spotlight, she also sees it as a challenge. “It’s not like every day or every year or every couple of years that the piccolo will be asked to play a concerto,” she said. “We don’t have the repertoire for it, and maybe the audience isn’t ready for that. I can’t say I won’t be nervous, but I’m excited to bring that soloistic voice and show the public that it’s something they’re really going to enjoy.”