Daniel Goode, co-director of the DownTown Ensemble (it was started in 1983) explains how he got the idea to reform the traditional symphony orchestra.

The Flexible Orchestra, an idea and a name both hit me like a bolt of lightening in 2003: The instrumentation of the traditional orchestra is inflexible (with some toying around the edges: adding an exotic instrument or so, or electronics), the system feeds on itself, excluding new blood, its economics impossible, and it has terrible trouble relating both to contemporary developments and needs of its own community. Since I love the orchestral sound, think it is the big invention of Western culture, have loved so much of the traditional orchestral literature since a child, I have tried to re-conceive the orchestra, or if you will, reform it. With some very small sums of money I started the Flexible Orchestra in 2004, now with three years, one-concert per year, we are launched. The basic idea is that we can get the effect of a large orchestral sound with strategic instrumentation. And we change the configuration every year or two, not every 200 or so. Thus in an ensemble of 15 (determined by budget), we had 12 cellos, flute, clarinet, trombone for two years. Then: 11 trombones, 2 clarinets (all doublings), viola, percussion, and this year, 10 trombones, 2 clarinets again, 2 double basses, piano. I plan to rotate the instrumentation through most of the choirs of the orchestra, always having a majority of one timbre, and a few complementing other instruments. Of course all repertory for these combinations must be commissioned. A somewhat utopian idea is for flexible orchestras to spring up in other communities, allowing for co-commissioning and repeat performances of repertory if we co-ordinate our instrumentations. I'm working on this with other interested musicians in Vancouver and Amsterdam, though funding is very, very difficult. Another spin off, however, is easy as it is wonderful. With a choir of cellos, we can revive significant multi-cello pieces (we did with Hellermann and Lois Vierk works), with a choir of trombones we revived a 1969 work by Fred Rzewski for 10 trombones, and this becomes, in general, possible and useful, since pieces like these of artistic merit for specialized combos and numbers have a hard time finding revivals, and are easy to do at our concerts. So, in one sense we can pick up on the neglected recent past, while giving some timbral variety to our orchestral programming. I have been very lucky in our conductor, who has continued to be a David Gilbert protégé, Tara Simoncic. And for my own creative development there has been a huge stimulus. I have written a new piece for each year of the Flexible Orchestra. In 2007 I revised and expanded the one from 2006, Annbling, which will be for the orchestration listed above with some large gamelan gongs in the mix. I wrote a significant essay about the relationship between gamelan and the founding of the Flexible Orchestra for the AMC's NewMusicBox. http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=4652

WHAT'S NEW IN 2008: In October 2008, the Flexible Orchestra will consist of 11 eleven flutes, tuba, harpsichord, and homemade instruments. We have commissioned Skip La Plante to do a new piece with the orchestra and ensemble, Music for Homemade Instruments. I will do a new piece, a transcription of a beautiful Hermit Thrush song recorded in Cape Breton Nova Scotia in the '80's. And we will do a revival of Henry Brant's wonderful 1931 Angels and Devils for eleven flutes, featuring virtuoso, Karl Kraber in the solo role. For more information, contact, Daniel Goode at dsgoode@earthlink.net