Alan Albright and His Ocarinas: Part 1
What the Metropolitan Museum of Art records about the wooden ocarinas Alan Albright gave it in 1981, and the curriculum vitae he circulated in 1995.
Alan Albright’s curriculum vitae appears here with his permission.
When someone mentions “Alan Albright Ocarina”, a simple Google search will find this: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/504313. According to the “credit line” information, this set of ocarinas are gifts from the maker himself from 1981.
From American Musical Instruments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1985) we can find more information. The following excerpt comes from page 79 of the book.
[72. group of ocarinas by Alan Albright. San Francisco, Calif., 1981. Clockwise from top: Bass double, L. 9 21/32 in. (1981.217.2); alto triple, L. 6 9/16 in. (1981.217.3); soprano, L. 3 5/8 in. (1981.217.1); and tenor double, L. 5 31/32 in. (1981.137)]
The Museum’s newest woodwinds are a group of four sleck-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 of 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 earthenwear 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 by 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 agencies in New York City. Following military service in the Vietnam War, he returned to New York to continue welfare work and teaching in Chinatown. Influenced by the 1960s crafts movement, he sought a kind of cottage industry for himself, and in 1970 he and a friend began a small enterprise making bamboo flutes. Encouraged by this experience and by association with the Chardavogne Group of craftwpeople in Warwick, New York, Albright experimented with other woodwind forms, including a novel four hole chromatic ocarina developed in 1964 by the English mathematician and musician John Taylor and patented 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 hallow 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, preferring to work quietly and avoid a rush of customers. In Spring, 1982, 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 of 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 Alask, 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.
— American Musical Instruments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985, page 79
A curriculum vitae of Alan Albright was published on the Ocarina Originators site, and is archived here. It is reproduced below.
Alan Albright — curriculum vitae, 1995
Education
- Certificate, École d’études fédéralistes, Aosta, Italy
- M.A., French Language and Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
- B.A., Romance Languages, Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.
- “A” levels, Uppingham School, Rutland, England
- High School Diploma, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
Professional experience — in France (1985 to October 1994)
- Teacher of American Language and Culture: CEP, Paris X at Cergy Pontoise and at Nanterre; ENSADE, Paris (business school); Centre culturel de Courbevoie
- Translation work, specializing in fine arts. Into English: Réunion des musées nationaux, Ateliers d’art, and others. Into French, with Nadine Gay: Gallimard Jeunesse, Ali Rahnema, Editions Duchêne, and others
Professional experience — in the United States (1964 to 1985)
- Craftsman, 1970–1985, participating in all major craft shows
- 1970–74, with Steve Rowles: introduced the bamboo flute in all its forms to the American public, manufacturing and selling some 40,000 instruments
- 1975–1985: developed and sold an original folk instrument, double-voiced wood ocarinas with diatonic scales. A complete set remains in the collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum
- Social work, 1965–1966 and 1968–1970: storefront teaching with immigrant Hong Kong teenagers; diagnostic casework for New York’s Bureau of Child Welfare
- Military service, 1966–1968: 3d Medical Battalion, 3d Infantry Division, Aschaffenburg, Germany
- Teaching, French, 1964–1965, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.; part-time teaching of French and music, Amity School, Warwick, NY
Volunteer service
- AFS Intercultural Programs, since 1987. Official representative of AFS Archives in France; board member of AFS-Vivre Sans Frontière, 1988–90 and 1992–1994
- UNESCO, since 1988. Representing the European Federation of Intercultural Learning, a group of European AFS organizations, at the annual Collective Consultation of Youth NGOs, at meetings and activities of the Working Group, and at large with the Youth Division and the Secretariats of the World Federation of UNESCO Centers, Clubs and Associations and of the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service
- Comité national de l’éducation populaire et de la jeunesse, 1990–93. Representing AFS-Vivre Sans Frontière at regular meetings of this consultative body for extra-scholastic education and youth
- Musée national de la coopération franco-américaine, since 1988. Official representative of AFS Archives, with extensive collaboration in all aspects
Personal
- Born March 16, 1941
- Single. American citizenship, French residency card
- Bilingual English and French, with some Spanish and German
A note on the text
The curriculum vitae is Alan Albright’s own, as published on the Ocarina Originators site. It arrived there as a flat run of unformatted lines and has been set out here as headings and lists; no wording has been changed. His postal address and email address, which the original included, are not reproduced.
The passage from American Musical Instruments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is quoted as printed, including its typographical slips — “sleck-looking”, “earthenwear”, “craftwpeople”, “hallow vessel”, “Alask”.