Nottingham Contemporary

rarescale is an East Midlands-based flexible-instrumentation chamber ensemble which develops new repertoire for low flutes through collaboration with composers at all stages of their careers.

Amy Jolly is a cellist and creator living in Manchester. Amy was recently awarded a PhD in performance practice from the Royal Academy of Music for her project The Intervening Cellist – Control & Creativity in Creative Practice.

Amy is co-founder of improvisatory group Playdates and folk duo Jassper, both with violinist Gemma Bass. She is also a member of trio Little Pillars (Rich Jones, piano and Gemma Bass, violin) and mixed-media duo Bonjour Claude, with composer Ellen Sargen. Bonjour Claude run triannual scratch nights for northern-based cross-genre artists at Levenshulme Old Library.

Amy has performed with Psappha, Riot Ensemble and UPROAR and has been involved with CoMA Manchester since its revival in 2020. She has performed as a principal player with BBC Philharmonic, Opera North and Birmingham Royal Ballet, and has appeared in pit bands for shows such as Hamilton and Mrs Doubtfire. Current work includes a commissioning project with low flute specialist Carla Rees and rarescale, and a folk music revival in schools in North Wales via BBC NOW Education.

Amy has previously been a recipient of the Charles Hallé Award and the Dame Gillian Brown Scholarship and has received support from the Richard Stapley Foundation, the Royal Society of Musicians, Britten-Pears Foundation and Help Musicians UK. Amy is lucky enough to play on a William Forster cello from London, 1780, and a Joules Coq cello from Toulon, 1850.

Carla Rees is a British low flutes player, composer and arranger, working to raise the profile of her instruments through performance, research and collaboration.

Carla enjoys an international performance career both as a soloist, improviser and chamber musician; she frequently appears at international festivals and was a soloist for the National Flute Association’s Concerto Gala in Phoenix Arizona in 2023. Recent performances include Brazil, USA and Japan, as well as around the UK.

She is an established recording artist with a discography of over thirty titles, including concertos with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Neue Musik im Ostseeraum, as well as several world premiere recordings of works composed for her. She has also recorded for film, radio and videogames. Her drive to create new repertoire for low flutes and baroque traverso has resulted in the premieres of several hundred works, many of which are now published by Tetractys Publishing.

Carla is Artistic Director of the contemporary chamber music ensemble rarescale, with whom she has performed in the UK and internationally and appeared on BBC Radio 3; she is also Director of its associated ensemble, rarescale Flute Academy. As part of her work with rarescale, Carla leads low flute days and masterclasses, encouraging advanced amateur players to explore and develop their interest in low flutes. She is also Artistic Director of the International Superflutes Collective, an ensemble which celebrates international friendship and collaboration.

Carla has over 100 published arrangements and compositions, which receive frequent performances internationally. Her acclaimed 2016 composition, Nightsong, has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and released on several commercial recordings.

In addition to her performance work, Carla is a dedicated teacher. She was appointed as the first Professor of Low Flutes and Contemporary Flute at the Royal Academy of Music in September 2021, and has taught masterclasses and led composer workshops at some of the world’s leading institutions, including the Juilliard School in New York and USC in Los Angeles.

Carla plays Kingma System flutes, made for her by Eva Kingma, Bickford Brannen and Lev Levit. She is Editor of the British Flute Society’s magazine, PAN, and Commissions Coordinator for the National Flute Association of America. Carla has a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London where she studied flute with Graham Mayger and Simon Channing, and composition with Timothy Salter.