Trevor Wye (born 6 June 1935) is a professional flautist, flute instructor, and author of several books about technical aspects of flute playing. He founded the International Summer School for flute.[1][2]
The English flautist Trevor Wye began playing the flute at age 15. Contrary to what might be expected of a famous flautist, Wye did not attend a college of music, nor a conservatory, nor a university, but he later studied with Marcel Moyse[3] whom Wye credits as a major influence on his playing, teaching, and writing career. Wye also studied with flutist Geoffrey Gilbert.[3] He was also influenced by British singer Alfred Deller and flautist William Bennett.
Wye was a freelance orchestral and chamber player in London for many years, and has several solo recordings. He served as a professor at the Guildhall School of Music, London, for fourteen years, and at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, for twenty-two years. The latter school awarded him an honorary degree in 1990.
Perhaps his best known published works are the six-volumed Practice Books for the Flute,[4][5] which concentrate on tone, technique, articulation, intonation and vibrato, breathing and scales, and advanced practice. He has also published a series titled A Beginner’s Book for the Flute, a piccolo practice book, and several arrangements for flute and piano. His biography of Marcel Moyse has been published in several languages, and an ongoing collaborative project consists of an encyclopedia of the flute. Another work-in-progress is a short biography of Albert Cooper, flute maker.
Wye teaches in his flute studio in Kent, which is a one-year residential course for postgraduate students established in 1990. He travels the world giving masterclasses and concerts, serves on juries for international competitions, and gives recitals. He is the general editor of a free, on-line flute encyclopedia called The Flute Ark.[6]
Wye's first and only wife Dot died in October 2022.
Wye was Director of the International Summer School, held at St. Lawrence College, Ramsgate 1969-1988. Students and teachers celebrated the conclusion with musical skits like this one where the chorus questions the morals of a wicked vicar played here by Wye himself in 1986.
List of publications
Wye has published over 170 items including books, CDs, DVDs.[7]
Hobbies
Wye's hobbies include astronomy. He has a home observatory with a 16inch (~400mm) Schmitt Cassegrain computerised telescope.[8] He has a large collection of antique flutes, both the western concert variety and other kinds. He demonstrates about 60 of them in his Carnival Show.[9]
Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. Rampal popularised the flute in the post–World War II years, recovering flute compositions from the Baroque era, and spurring contemporary composers, such as Francis Poulenc, to create new works that have become modern standards in the flautist's repertoire.
Marcel Moyse was a French flautist. Moyse studied at the Paris Conservatory and was a student of Philippe Gaubert, Adolphe Hennebains, and Paul Taffanel; all of whom were flute virtuosos in their time. Moyse played principal flute in various Paris orchestras and appeared widely as a soloist and made many recordings. His trademark tone was clear, flexible, penetrating, and controlled by a fast vibrato. This was a characteristic of the 'French style' of flute playing that was to influence the modern standard for flutists worldwide.
Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
William Ingham Brooke Bennett was a British flautist and teacher. He played in many English orchestras and chamber music ensembles, and as a soloist. He made more than 100 recordings, including chamber music with partners including George Malcolm, Osian Ellis, and Yehudi Menuhin. He premiered flute concertos written for him, by William Mathias, Diana Burrell and Raimundo Pineda. Bennett taught at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in Germany and the Royal Academy of Music, and held master classes worldwide.
Simon Proctor is a British composer and pianist, known for his works for unusual instruments.
Robert Morris Aitken is a Canadian composer and flautist. He began his career as a teenager playing in a number of orchestras, notably becoming the youngest principal flautist in the history of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1958 at the age of 19. In 1971, he abandoned ensemble performance to pursue a highly successful solo career. He has appeared as a soloist with major symphony orchestras throughout North America, Europe and Asia and has made more than 40 commercial recordings.
Philippe Gaubert was a French musician who was a distinguished performer on the flute, a respected conductor and a composer, primarily for the flute.
Ernesto Köhler was an Italian flautist and composer. He was considered one of the best flautists of his era.
Geoffrey Winzer Gilbert was an English flautist, who was a leading influence on British flute-playing, introducing a more flexible style, based on French techniques, with metal instruments replacing the traditional wood. He was a prominent member of five British symphony orchestras between 1930 and 1961, and in 1948 he founded a chamber ensemble of leading wind players.
The Sonata in E major for flute and basso continuo is a sonata for transverse flute and figured bass composed by J. S. Bach in the 1740s. It was written as the result of a visit in 1741 to the court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam, where Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel had been appointed principal harpsichordist to the king the previous year. It was dedicated to Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, the king's valet and private secretary, who, like the king, was an amateur flautist.
Joseph Rampal was a distinguished flutist in his own right, albeit better known as the father of the internationally renowned soloist Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Claude-Paul Taffanel was a French flautist, conductor and instructor, regarded as the founder of the French Flute School that dominated much of flute composition and performance during the mid-20th century.
The French Flute School, as practiced by pupils of Paul Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire, employed a playing style featuring a light tone and vibrato. Students strived to capture the sound quality of Taffanel in their own playing. Louis Fleury described Taffanel's tone as, "captivating, and also very full."This reference of a full sound has often been described as powerful and brassy, which can be taken as derogatory. However, when Gaubert was questioned once about this, he redressed the balance by reiterating the word 'full' by insisting that Taffanel produced a perfectly homogeneous tone throughout the entire range of the instrument. This became fundamental quality common to the great flautists of the French School and can be seen in Taffanel's successors. These flautists used metal flutes of the modified Boehm system by Louis Lot and others. This stood in contrast to the mostly wooden German and English instruments, which their flautists played with a strong and steady sound.
Louis Moyse was a French flute player and composer. He was the son of influential French flutist Marcel Moyse, a co-founder of the Vermont Marlboro Music Festival, and taught many world-class flutists all over the world. He died of heart failure at age 94.
Frances Blaisdell was an American flautist, widely recognized as one of the first female professional flautists. She held positions with the National Orchestral Association, the New Opera Company and the New Friends of Music. In addition, she was the first woman to appear as a soloist and wind player in concert with the New York Philharmonic. In addition to playing, she also held teaching positions at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Dalcroze School, Mannes School of Music, and Stanford University where she taught for over 35 years. Blaisdell's teachers included Georges Barrère, Marcel Moyse and William Kincaid.
The Flute Concertino in D major, Op. 107, is a concertino composed in 1902 by French composer Cécile Chaminade. It was originally written for flute and piano, but Chaminade later arranged it for flute and orchestra.
Wissam Boustany is a Lebanese/British concert flutist. Boustany has toured and collaborated with a number of symphony and chamber orchestras. Conductors Boustany has worked with include Claudio Abbado, Ivan Fischer, Bramwell Tovey, John Elliot Gardiner, Roger Norrington, Georg Solti, Peter Szilvay, Lubnan Baalbaki, James Judd, Jordi Mora, Volodymyr Sirenko, Levon Parikian, Nicholas Cleobury, Martyn Brabbins, Michel Brandt, Varujan Kodjan, Clark Rundell, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Evelyne Aiello, Ludwig Carrasco, Nader Abbassi, Andrew Morley and Toby Purser. He is a recipient of The Crystal Award, awarded to him in 1998 at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland.
Adolphe Hennebains was a French classical flautist and music teacher.
Rachel Brown is a British flautist and author, known especially for her work with Baroque music and flutes. She is currently professor of baroque flute at the Royal College of Music in London, in addition to traveling around the world to give masterclasses. She has performed with many orchestras internationally, including as principal flute with Kent Opera, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Hanover Band, the King's Consort, Collegium Musicum 90, Ex Cathedra, and the Brandenburg Consort. She is known for her extensive work and mastery of both historical and modern flutes.
Nicholas Laucella was an American concert flautist and composer. During the course of a professional musical career which spanned over three decades, he performed as the principal flute with several leading orchestral ensembles including the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City.
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