Posted by Alan Albright and His Ocarinas: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
When someone mentions “Alan Albright Ocarina”, a simple Google search will find this: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/504313 According to the “credit line” information, this set of ocarinas are gifts from the maker himself from 1981.
From the “American musical instruments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” (1985), we can find more information. The following excerpt comes from page 79 of the book (also from this link: http://www.clayz.com/baz/AACV.html):
[72. group of ocarinas by Alan Albright. San Francisco, Calif., 1981. Clockwise from top: Bass double, L. 9 21/32 in. (1981.217.2); alto triple, L. 6 9/16 in. (1981.217.3); soprano, L. 3 5/8 in. (1981.217.1); and tenor double, L. 5 31/32 in. (1981.137)]
The Museum’s newest woodwinds are a group of four sleck-looking ocarinas (Fig. 72) made in 1981 by Alan Albright (b. Culver, Ind., March 16, 1941), a current resident of San Francisco. The ocarina (an Italian word meaning “goose-shaped”) is a vessel-bodied instrument with whistle mouthpiece, improved from earlier vessel flutes of folk origin by Giuseppe Donati in Budrio, Italy, around 1860. Manufactured in huge quantities and various sizes around the turn of the century, especially by the Viennese firm of H. Fiehn, these popular earthenwear instruments were sold by mail order in the United States, whereas in Europe they were played alone or in small ensembles. Later pushed off the market by cheap small harmonicas, ocarinas have made a comeback recently, executed in decorative forms in various materials. Alan Albright is one of the craftspeople who have given impetus to this little “renaissance.”
Albright, who has a prep school background and a Harvard M.A. in French, taught for a year at Phillips Academy, then worked for child welfare agencies in New York City. Following military service in the Vietnam War, he returned to New York to continue welfare work and teaching in Chinatown. Influenced by the 1960s crafts movement, he sought a kind of cottage industry for himself, and in 1970 he and a friend began a small enterprise making bamboo flutes. Encouraged by this experience and by association with the Chardavogne Group of craftwpeople in Warwick, New York, Albright experimented with other woodwind forms, including a novel four hole chromatic ocarina developed in 1964 by the English mathematician and musician John Taylor and patented separately by Paul Johnson.
Albright wished to construct a chromatic ocarina capable of producing simple harmony in the manner of the obsolete double and triple flageolets, and while splitting firewood one day, he hit upon the idea of dividing the hallow vessel into two or three chambers, each with its own windway and finger holes. These polyphonic instruments, carved of carefully selected exotic hardwoods, now constitute much of Albright’s output. the Museum’s examples include a soprano ocarina of Mexican black poisonwood, a bass double of Andaman padauk, an alto triple ocarina also of padauk, and a tenor double of Mexican bocote.
Albright sells mainly through retail distributors, preferring to work quietly and avoid a rush of customers. In Spring, 1982, he wrote to the Museum: “I am again confronted with a reluctance to continue production and a need to devote more energy to creativity. Part of my aim has always been to provide a catalyst (the folk instrument) for a person to realize his `musicality.'” John Adams, an environmentalist who works in Alask, composed nine songs for piccolo, ocarina, and percussion between 1974 and 1979; these have recently been recorded under the title Songbirdsongs (Opus One records, Greenville, Maine) and give fresh impetus to the ocarina revival.
A CV of Alan Albright can be found here: http://www.clayz.com/baz/AACV.html which I also copy below for archiving purpose.
Alan ALBRIGHT
PMB 13925
239 Rainbow Drive
Livingston, TX 77399-2039
email: pelerin@win.net
EDUCATION :
Certificate
Ecole d’études fédéralistes, Aosta, Italy
M.A., French Language and Literature .
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
B.A., Romance Languages
Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.
“A” levels
Uppingham School, Rutland, England
High School Diploma
Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
IN FRANCE (1985 to October 1994)
Teacher of American Language and Culture
CEP, Paris X at Cergy Pontoise and at Nanterre
ENSADE, Paris (business school)
Centre culturel de Courbevoie
Translation work (specializing in Fine Arts)
into English: Réunion des musées nationaux, Ateliers d’art, etc.
into French (with Nadine Gay) : Gallimard Jeunesse, Ali Rahnema, Editions Duchêne, etc.
IN THE UNITED STATES (1964 to 1985)
Craftsman (1970-1985) (participating in all major craft shows)
1970-74 (with Steve Rowles), introduced the bamboo flute in all its
forms to the American public (manufactured and sold some 40,000
instruments)
1975-1985, developed and sold an original folk instrument, double-voiced wood ocarinas with diatonic scales (a complete set remains in the collection of the NY Metropolitan Museum)
Social Work (1965-1966 ; 1968-1970)
Storefront teaching work with immigrant Hong Kong teenagers.
Diagnostic casework for New York’s Bureau of Child Welfare.
Military Service (1966-1968)
3d Medical Battalion, 3d Infantry Division, Aschaffenburg, Germany
Teaching (French) (1964-1965), Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
Part-time teaching (French and Music), Amity School, Warwick, NY
VOLUNTEER SERVICE
AFS Intercultural Programs (since 1987). Official representative of AFS Archives in France, Board member of AFS-Vivre Sans Frontière, 1988-90, 1992-1994.
UNESCO (since 1988)
Representing the European Federation of Intercultural Learning (group of European AFS organizations) at the annual Collective Consultation of Youth NGO’s, at meetings and activities of the Working Group and at large with the Youth Division and the Secretariats of the World Federation of UNESCO Centers, Clubs and Associations and of the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service..
Comité national de l’éducation populaire et de la jeunesse (1990-3) Representing AFS-Vivre Sans Frontière at regular meetings of this consultative body (extra-scholastic education and youth).
Musée national de la coopération franco-américaine (since 1988)
Official representative of AFS Archives. Extensive collaboration in all aspects.
PERSONAL DATA:
Born March 16, 1941
Single – American citizenship – French residency card.
Bilingual English-French with notions of Spanish and German.