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The Career and Legacy of William Bennett
Renowned flutist William Bennett ("Wibb" to his 6,000 closest friends) celebrates his 80th birthday in 2016. Here, Wibb discusses a lifetime of learning, remaking, playing, and teaching the flute with his friend, distinguished author Edward Blakeman.
I've recently written a book about William Bennett: Wibb, A Flute for Life. Trying to capture the essence of this extraordinary flute player in just a few pages, therefore, presents quite a challenge.
Or does it? It's all there in the title. Wibb has quite simply devoted most of his 80 years to the flute: playing it, teaching it, redesigning and remaking it, thinking about it constantly and about the music that he conjures so wonderfully from it.
He himself sums it all up in one sentence: All my life I've been dogged by good luck!
The book grew out of a series of conversations with Wibb, and I have sought to reproduce the immediacy and informality of his responses as closely as possible. I hope this article gives you a taste of that. Exclamation marks nearly always means that he burst out laughing. We both laughed a lot.
William Ingham Brooke Bennett (the nickname "Wibb" comes from his initials) was born on February 7, 1936. Both his parents were professional architects, and they passed on to him an interest and a skill in art.
I picked up lots of pens and pencils and did this, that, and the other. Some drawings have even survived. I always liked doing painting and drawing and, of course, my father was always drawing pictures and things.
Music was just as vivid an influence, however, for Wibb as a young boy.
I grew up with the gramophone. I had my recordings of Marcel Moyse at quite an early age. I was, without knowing it, hearing French flute playing. I think I was fascinated by the sound and the expression of the flute for a lot longer than I knew that I was.
And as Wibb began to play the flute himself, he wasn't content just to listen.
I was playing along with a lot of my recordings. The Mozart Concertos, doubling up with Marcel Moyse. A little while later I got the flute and...