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As both a recitalist and orchestral musician, Yu-Wei has performed on Baroque and classical flutes throughout the UK and Europe. She is the Principal Flute at Oxford Bach Soloists and Opera Warberg (Sweden), and has performed with many renowned period chamber ensembles and orchestras, including Arcangelo, Florilegium, Gabrieli Consort & Players, London Handel Orchestra, The Mozartists and The Hanover Band. Since 2021, Yu-Wei has been a Professor of Modern and Historical Flute at London Performing Academy of Music. Yu-Wei founded Flauguissimo Duo with guitarist and theorbo player Johan Löfving in 2008, with whom she has performed at many prestigious venues and festivals across the UK and further afield.

What is your earliest musical memory?

Playing a small, old pedal organ completely nonstop when I was four years old.

What non-musical hobbies or interests do you have?

Baking cakes and dancing Argentine tango!

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Touching people’s hearts and souls with music.

What is your greatest fear?

Shrunk flute joints suddenly slipped down in cold weather!!!

What is your superpower/superhero ability?

Dancing with the music and being one with the singers.

Do you have a lucky charm or ritual that you follow before important concerts?

Tapping lots of lavender oil all over myself...

Can you describe the feeling of truly understanding a complex piece of music?

I feel a sudden insight as if I was watching a story or a scene full of characters with their various movements and emotions coming out of the musical phrases. It’s like a whole new world unfolded to me!

What made you choose the flute?

My mum actually preferred cello. However, my dad’s cousin was a piccolo player in the Taipei City Symphony Orchestra and a flute teacher in my school at the time. We went to her house to try it out – let’s say it was ‘love from the first blow’!

How did you get into historical performance practice/Early Music?

Since I began to learn about Medieval and Renaissance music history at university back in Taiwan, I became totally obsessed with the ‘earlier music’. I started to learn all the flute partitas, sonatas and orchestral suites by JS Bach, and thought I needed to learn how to play the original instrument. That’s literally what I told the panel in my RCM audition!

What’s special about historically-informed/Early Music performances?

As lots of Early Music is dance-based, or heavily influenced by dances, historically-informed performances often approach the music in a way naturally close to the human body movements, breaths and emotions. To me, this is truly wonderful.

As co-founder of Flauguissimo, what do you enjoy most about your role, and how do you overcome any challenges?

I really enjoy imagining and creating new concert programmes, and then to play my favourite music with wonderful friends! Sometimes it’s difficult to balance budgets with ambitions as I love playing big ensemble pieces with singers. However, we tried many solo arias and cantatas in various concert programmes and our latest album, To the Northern Star, and it worked like magic with duo as well as ensemble. Sometimes you can get away with a smaller band.

Flauguissimo seeks to deliver relevant and inspiring performances of historical repertoires. Can you tell us more?

We believe all humans share emotions and feelings, no matter present or past. We seek to understand and express these universal human emotions, tell stories and touch our audiences' souls through our performances of historical repertoires.

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^{Flauguissimo | JH Roman – Sonata in E minor for flute and bass continuo: Andante – Presto}

Flauguissimo has received a grant from Continuo Foundation for a series of concerts this Autumn, titled ‘Vikings and Vagabonds’ – a celebration of Swedish Baroque music. How did this project come about?

The Swedish baroque repertoire contains many hidden gems with lots of great music and is well-connected to the English and European musical world in the 18th century. The most famous Swedish baroque composer, Johan Helmich Roman (1694–1758), for example, played alongside JS Bach’s oboist brother in Stockholm in his youth; he later came to London and played in Handel’s orchestra together with the great Italian violinist, Francesco Geminiani among many others! As the Drottningholmsmusiken (music composed for the wedding of Prince Adolf Frederick and Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia by Roman in 1744) and the two cantatas were all written for weddings and the court’s New Year celebrations originally, we hope to recreate the great party spirit with food, drinks and music.

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^{Flauguissimo | JH Roman – Trio Sonata in E minor, BeRI 115: Vivace}

In these concerts, we will present music written by Roman and his contemporaries, including two beautiful secular cantatas. We recorded one soprano aria from each on our latest Flauguissimo album, To the Northern Star. We will also perform bigger instrumental pieces such as his oboe concerto, as Roman was not only a virtuosic violinist (hence his nickname, ‘the Swedish Virtuoso’), but also an excellent oboe player. There will also be pieces by composers such as Johan Agrell (1701–1765) and Johan Wikmanson (1753–1800) – amazing music which is almost as unknown in Sweden as it is over here.

Last year, the Oxford Bach Soloists released their album, Bach Cantatas. Could you share with us any special moments in the realisation of this project?

The cantata 'Ich habe genug', BWV 82, has always been one of my dream pieces to perform! It was so wonderful to play and record with a tenor instead of the usual soprano version, as it created not only a totally different sound-world, but also the storytelling experience together with Bach’s only solo tenor cantata, BWV 55. Tenor Nick Pritchard is such an incredible musician, and it has been so amazing to explore all the emotions and rhetorical effects together with the conductor, Tom Hammond-Davies, and the rest of the ensemble. I remember seeing many smiling faces with real commitment and joy all around me during the recording sessions.

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^{Oxford Bach Soloists | JS Bach: Cantata: ‘Ich habe genug’, BWV 82}

You played a significant part in this recording with the Oxford Bach Soloists. Can you tell us about the role of the flute in these Cantatas?

The flute has a major obbligato role in both of those cantatas; it means the flute plays an independent melody throughout the arias, often introduces the main themes, and sets up the scenes and atmosphere before the singer starts, then either echoes or shadows the singer's line, and finally, recites the melody again at the end. You can say the flute is the singer’s duo partner or a very prominent shadow/reflection, and just as important.

^{Oxford Bach Soloists: Bach Cantatas}

You have a busy career performing with multiple groups including Oxford Bach Soloists, Flauguissimo, Opera Warberg and many other renowned period-instrument groups. What do you love most about your career, and how do you balance a busy freelance schedule?

I love the Early Music world as you are always playing with friends in various settings, from duo and chamber music to big oratorios and operas. This nature of flexibility requires more creativity and partnership among fellow musicians, rather than always just getting instructions from conductors. I also get to play dance music and with singers a lot – my two favourite things!

It’s crucial to prepare the repertoire early and pace the practice schedule carefully, especially when switching instruments, as all the Renaissance/Baroque/Classical flutes use different fingerings and temperaments. It can get very confusing.

Oxford Bach Soloists' album, ‘Bach Cantatas’, featuring Yu-Wei Hu alongside Nick Pritchard, is available to purchase on the Signum Records label and to stream on Spotify. In the meantime, to watch Yu-Wei perform live with Oxford Bach Soloists and Flauguissimo Duo, check out the details of the upcoming performances on their respective profile pages on Continuo Connect.