Folias Duo: Heartdance
Folias Music

Folias Duo members Carmen Maret (flute) and Andrew Bergeron (guitar) call Grand Rapids, Michigan home, yet the married couple often seem more like itinerant troubadours when so much of their time revolves around exploring new places and sharing their music with listeners. Their latest collection, Heartdance, celebrates two decades as life partners and musical collaborators; it's also arguably the strongest Folias Duo album statement to date. That shouldn't be interpreted to mean their earlier seven releases (five on Blue Griffin and the last two on Folias Music) are in any way deficient but more a way of stressing that the new one finds the duo in exceptionally fine form. The nine pieces, beautifully captured at the Sono Luminus Studio in Boyce, Virginia in January 2023, exude vitality, as if the two couldn't wait to get their latest material onto tape. The chamber music Folias Duo performs is also entirely self-authored, which naturally makes the music all the more special.

If Heartdance seems to breathe a pure, outdoorsy air, there's a good reason for it: its material was written in rustic composing cabins. Collectively called Dragonfly by Andrew, the album's first four pieces, for example, were written at an Oregon cabin during a month-long break from touring in 2019. Each part addresses a separate stage in the creature's life, from “its birth as an aquatic insect to the final mating formation it makes in the shape of a heart, a kind of flying valentine,” in the composer's words. Like so much of the duo's music, inspiration for Dragonfly came from the natural beauty surrounding the duo during a short respite from the rigours of travel. “Aquatic” introduces the suite on a mysterious note, with the music's sway intensified by its 11/16 meter and the serpentine intertwining of flute and guitar. Maret's playing arrests for the authority of its attack, as does Bergeron's for the precision with which his guitar conjoins itself to the flute. Tremolo effects by both players imbue the subsequent “Molting" with intense momentum, an effect made all the more interesting when the flurries with which they execute the material crystallize into long, flowing melodies. Inspired by Piazzolla, “Flying” engages with a lilting 7/8 rhythm and lithe, acrobatic flute patterns; the concluding “Heartdance” likewise catches the ear in using a Basque dance called the Zortziko as a foundation. Expertly delivered arpeggios by both players and scale passages in contrary motion also contribute to the music's hypnotic effect. Throughout the suite and the album in general, the two dazzle with their virtuosic command of their instruments.

The three central pieces—two by Maret and one co-written—were inspired by Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, which had been left behind in one of the Oregon composing cabins and serendipitously found by the duo. Musically, the first in the trio, “Meadow Dream,” blends the ‘mystic chord' of Alexander Scriabin with a reference from the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory song “Pure Imagination” (additional inspiration came from words spoken by Gene Wilder in the original film version, “If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it”). In this intricate, episodic setting, a sober guitar intro is enlivened by the flute's entrance and the bird-like fluttering and torrential double notes that follow; somewhat of a study in contrast, “Meadow Dream” oscillates between passages of melancholy reserve and joyful abandon. Switching to alto flute, Maret glides across guitar pizzicato in “Nighthawk,” which the partners developed using a tag-team-like approach. Fluctuating between major and minor keys, mystery pervades the performance in its merging of low-register melodies and bird-like flutters with plucked guitar. Closing the circle is Maret's “Looking Glass,” which she wrote in Oregon's Blue Mountains during time split between studying Argentine folk music and hiking through the wilderness. Tango and nature thus come together in a driving, piccolo-featured setting that might well be the album's most instantly captivating piece.

One final inspiration for the album surfaces in the closing tracks, specifically Akira Kurosawa's last film Dreams. Written in cabins in the upper peninsula of Michigan, “Procession of the Foxes” and “Forgotten Peach Blossoms” also stand out for spotlighting Maret on tambin, a fascinating handmade West Africa three-holed flute from Guinea. In contrast to the rapid-flowing character of many pieces, “Procession of the Foxes” unfolds meditatively, even if Bergeron's guitar brings occasional animation. The tambin lends the material a haunting, dreamlike quality—fittingly so given that the originating story involves music-playing foxes advancing through a magical forest. Andrew's “Forgotten Peach Blossoms” is the more dynamic of the two, its sense of movement established by flowing guitar patterns and picking and the tambin's dance-like expressions.

June 20023