Biography
Trevor Wye studied the flute privately both with Geoffrey Gilbert and the celebrated
Marcel Moyse. He was a freelance orchestral and chamber music player on the London scene for many years and has made several solo recordings. He was formerly both a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music, London and for 21 years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he taught the flute, coached chamber music and conducted the RNCM Wind Band. His wife Dot was a great help in those busy times.
Trevor Wye is the author of the famous Practice Books for the Flute, which have received world wide acclaim and have been translated into eleven other languages and collectively have sold over several million copies. His highly praised musical biography of Marcel Moyse, An Extraordinary Man was published in English and five other languages. For the past 30 years he has been working on an encyclopaedia of the flute, together with Sarah Bull and Martin Hoffman which was online: www.fluteark.com, now discontinued.
In 2017, his new book, Flute Secrets was published and within the first year, a second edition was printed.
After leaving the RNCM, he created a Flute Studio for thirty years at his home in Kent, a unique residential course for postgraduate flute students. During this time, he travelled throughout the world giving master classes and concerts including the Carnival Show, Variations on the Carnival of Venice for 60 flutes and piano with the extraordinary pianist, Clifford Benson. He has given master classes with annual appearances in the USA, Canada, throughout Europe, Taiwan, Korea and Japan and served on juries for several international competitions. In 1990 he was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music by the Duchess of Kent. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 by the National Flute Association of the USA.
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Other Activities: He taught the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and conducted wind ensembles and the Canterbury Youth Orchestra for the Kent Music School in the 1960’s - 1980’s and taught at Canterbury Cathedral Choir School from 1962. In 1969, he was invited by Geoffrey Gilbert to teach both at the Royal Manchester College of Music, and at the Guildhall School of Music, London. After teaching individual lessons in Manchester for a year, he established a weekly master class method of teaching, at that time little known outside France. He was invited by Gilbert to replace him when he went to the USA.
In 1969 he founded and was Director of International Summer School, inviting Marcel Moyse to teach in Canterbury each summer for two years. Thereafter, William Bennett, James Galway and later Geoffrey Gilbert, Peter-Lukas Graf, Stephen Preston and himself, with five assistant teachers continued to teach for three weeks at the biggest flute residential masterclass in the world. This continued for a further 16 years at St Augustine’s College and King’s School, Canterbury, and in St Lawrence’s College, Ramsgate, attracting 120+ flute players each year. Dot Wye was the marvellous secretary and our daughter Micky who was a great help with the administration. Later on, bassoon, oboe, clarinet, strings and brass classes were added with international soloists and teachers and with numerous recitals in Canterbury Cathedral, at King’s School and at St Lawrence College.
During the 1970’s he founded the Kent Wind Society for amateur wind players of all ages which had a regular winter season of recitals with famous soloists. Works were commissioned from Gordon Jacob and Alan Ridout and other composers. Amongst the highlights were performances of Berlioz’ Grande Symphony Funebre et Triomphale with around 500 players and a chorus of 150, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, and Handel’s Fireworks Music conducted by Sir David Wilcocks, both in Canterbury Cathedral. Also a performance of Tallis’ 40 part Motet, Spem in Alium, arranged for flutes and bassoons and performed by 125 flutists and 35 bassoonists was performed in the Cathedral .
In the early 1970’s he bought and regularly played a Bb Radcliff System flute. He asked Albert Cooper to construct a new scale and asked Altus Flutes of Japan to make a Boehm System Bb flute, and later, a flute damour in A. He has recorded on CD all three flutes damour several times with Clifford Benson and is responsible for re-introducing the flute damour in modern times.
He created a special show called 50 Variations on the Carnival of Venice for 60 Flutes and Piano which he has performed throughout the world regularly adding new flutes to the show. The piano part was written by Robert Scott. At a rehearsal at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the London Fire Brigade attended a rehearsal, examined the pyrotechnic flutes, and afterwards issued him with an official Class C Explosives License.
At one of the many US NFA Flute Conventions where he performed as a soloist, after a concert on the flute damour, he finished by playing a solo on the mandolin.
In 1983, he founded the British Flute Society with help from the instrument makers, Boosey and Hawkes, and worked with others to organise regular Flute Days until full weekend Conventions were established. Together with Julie Wright, he was Convention Director organising five BFS Flute Conventions at the RNCM in Manchester.
In between these activities, in the 1970’s and 80’s, he re-tuned many Louis Lot, Bonneville, and Lebret flutes to Cooper’s Scale, becoming interested in flute making, and made five silver flutes and a number of headjoints. He then moved on to making four harpsichords, the last one a two-manual copy of a Taskin of 1780. He also worked part-time for several years for the Social Services in Ashford, Kent, helping teenage boys to ‘go straight’ after they had been convicted of crime.
In 1990, after leaving Manchester, he founded The Flute Studio at his house in Hastingleigh, Kent, attracting six or more students each year with a total of 173 attendees until it closed in March 2020. It was registered with the British Accreditation Council.
During 2020, with the help of two students, he photographed the tombstones in Hastingleigh Churchyard leaving an album in the Church and wrote a Guide to the Church which is in now in print.
He also wrote a short biography of Albert Cooper which was published in the BFS magazine, PAN, in six parts during 2022 - 2024.
He has now retired to Salisbury in Wiltshire to be near his daughter and grandsons and still practices daily scales on the flute, though does not play concerts.
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