Carla Rees is at the forefront of innovation in flute playing, working to develop the repertoire for her instruments through research, performance and interdisciplinary collaboration
Her multi-faceted career incorporates solo and chamber music performance, improvisation, composition, arranging, editing, teaching and recording.
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, 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. She is also a member of the Goldfield Ensemble, Edison Ensemble and Duo NewFLow. 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 low flutes, she also performs historical and contemporary repertoire on baroque flutes.
An experienced recording artist, she has appeared on over 20 CDs 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, television and radio, and has over 80 published arrangements and compositions. 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.
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 is a faculty member for the FluteXpansions Sonic Immersion summer program.