Alan Albright

(1981.217.3); soprano, L. 3+S/8 in. (1981.217.1), and tenor~louble, L. 5 +31/32 in (1981.137)

The Museum's* newest woodwinds are a group four sleek-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 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 earthenware 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 hy 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

agencics in New York City. Following military service in thc Vietnam War, he returned to New York to continue welfare work and teaching Chinatown. Influenced by the 1960s crafts movement, he sought a kind of cottage industry for himself, and in I970 he and a friend began a small enterprise making bamboo flutes. Encouraged by this experience and by association with

Chardavogne Group of craftspeople in Warwick, New York, Albright experimented with other woodwind forms, including a novel forms,including a novel four hole chromatic ocarina developed in 1964 by the English mathematician*** and musician John Taylor and patetented 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 hollow 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, prefering to work quietly and avoid a rush of customers. In spring, I982, 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 ot 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 Alaska, 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.