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She holds her head high whether playing piccolo or the 6-foot contrabass flute, as if her instrument were a magic wand used to activate her voice in the highest registers and the deepest.

Smerilli performed most of the instruments himself, including the inky depths of a contrabass clarinet, which he purchased and learned just for this score.

It was a deep, rolling, glorious contrabass; once described as the sound that "Moses heard when addressed by God."

Chase makes virtuosically parched, percussive exhalations; she can be sheerly sweet on the standard flute and has, on the enormous contrabass flute, the milky penetration of a whale’s deep-sea call.

Contra — Means lower: for example a contrabassoon sounds lower than a regular bassoon43 , and a contrabass clarinet is even lower than a bass clarinet.