Wibb - A Flute for Life by Edward Blakeman

William Bennett (Wibb) is internationally renowned as one of the greatest flute players of our time. In a glittering career spanning six decades he has toured the world performing and teaching to universal acclaim. This book explores his extraordinary lifetime devoted to the flute—and for the first time presents Wibb in his own words.

This is not a traditional biography. Rather, it is an invitation to spend time with an extraordinary, mercurial personality. Wibb is larger than life and certainly not to be constrained easily between the covers of a book. But whatever this book is, you will be able for the first time to follow Wibb in detail through his extraordinary life devoted to the flute. Wibb has played the flute, taught it, redesigned it, re-made it, and thought endlessly about it for over sixty years. There was a lot to talk about and I have sought to reproduce the immediacy and informality of our conversations as closely as possible.

Edward Blakeman is Head of Music at BBC Radio 3. A former Chairman of the Britsh Flute Society, he is editor of The Flute Player’s Companion (Chester Music) and numerous other musical editions, and author of Taffanel—Genius of the Flute (Oxford University Press) and The Pocket Guide to Handel (Faber & Faber).