Of the fine folks who share this craft with me, I’ve met only a few in person, viz: Abell, Berney, Christie, Copeland, Cotter, Freeman, Healy, Olwell, Ormiston, Peeler, Powell, Dad, Von Huene and Wenner. I was too late to meet David Williams. I don’t know that I will ever get the time and money to shake the hand of Grinter, McGee, Reviol or Soubeyran. Likewise, Bigio, Burns, Cameron, Copley, Hamilton, Murray, Rose, Wilkes, Worrell, Visser and many others are on my list. I’d sure like to bring them all together in one place, especially in light of the thanks I owe some of them. Years from now, we will be lumped as contemporaries, some without ever having come face-to-face.
Short of that prospect, it would be interesting to say that we all came together on some level. After all, if the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project could pull-off a joint effort in 1975, we should be able to build a flute together, even at a distance.
If too many agendas interfere, here’s an alternative: Start with an existing flute from a maker of the past. From a large list, send the flute to each maker who puts his own mark on it (without claiming to be the maker). Such a flute will have at least passed through the hands of the world’s best.
Walt Sweet