The Seattle Times' article about Felix

Professor revived use of wooden flutes

By Melinda Bargreen, Seattle Times music critic

Flute innovator, professor and performer: Felix Skowronek made a large impact on not only the Pacific Northwest music community, but also on worldwide audiences where he toured and taught. Professor Skowronek, the University of Washington's flute professor since 1968, died Monday evening in a Seattle hospital of stomach cancer. He was 70.

A founding member of the Soni Ventorum Woodwind Quintet, which disbanded in 2001, Professor Skowronek is perhaps best known for his almost single-handed revival of the wooden Boehm-system flute in this country, at a time when the field was dominated by flutes made of silver, gold and platinum.

He was tireless in his enthusiasm for this instrument, even chopping down trees here in the Northwest to make his flutes, and he could hold forth for hours on preferred hardwoods and flute-making methods from around the world. His experience was sought by one of America's leading flute makers, Verne Powell of Boston, and Professor Skowronek also toured several countries with lecture/recitals illustrating the properties of flute headjoints (the mouthpiece section of the flute) he had made from his preferred Australian woods.

A Seattle native, Professor Skowronek began his career at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute, where he studied flute and chamber music with two legends: William Kincaid and Marcel Tabuteau. It was there that he met bassoonist Arthur Grossman, and the two started a student version of the Soni Ventorum quintet with Robert Bonnevie (later principal horn of the Seattle Symphony) back in 1952.

Professor Skowronek moved back to Seattle to be principal flute of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra; he later performed with the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in Germany during his years of military service.

In 1960, Professor Skowronek was invited, along with Grossman and the other members of the Soni Ventorum, to join the faculty at the new Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico, founded by the great cellist Pablo Casals.

"Casals was so persuasive," remembered Grossman, "that the governor of Puerto Rico decided to start his conservatory immediately, in an unfinished building that was supposed to become a brassiere factory. We always used to joke that when the latex trucks arrived, we'd know we were finished."

Far from finished, the quintet taught there until 1968, when a Rockefeller grant brought the Soni — and the Philadelphia String Quartet — to the University of Washington. After a brief hiatus (when he was principal flute of the St. Louis Symphony), Professor Skowronek joined the Soni when it arrived at the UW in September of 1968, becoming part of the faculty.

He launched a regular program of U.S. State Department-sponsored international tours whose stopping points were often chosen according to the quality of adjacent archaeological sites and museums.

Professor Skowronek, Grossman recalled, was "a real history buff who would always read books beforehand about the places we were to visit. He was meticulous, dedicated and interested in everything.

"Felix always felt strongly that we should play composers who should be heard, no matter how hard the music was — for us and for the audiences."

Grossman was at Professor Skowronek's bedside when he died.

"He was a wonderful colleague," Grossman said, "and he will be greatly missed."

Professor Skowronek was devoted to education, not only here but at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Marrowstone Music Festival, as well as judging numerous flute competitions as far afield as Paris, and presenting master classes in Brazil.

He became founding president of the Seattle Flute Society in 1979, and served as president and board chairman of the National Flute Association.

He is survived by two children, son Neil of Seattle and daughter Andrea of Kansas City, Mo. Memorial plans have not been announced.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/
2002938973_felixobit19.html?syndication=rss, accessed April 21, 2006.