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Walfrid Kujala

Walfrid Kujala was an American flutist, piccolo player, teacher, and writer.

He was born in Warren, Ohio on February 19, 1925. In high school, he studied with Parker Taylor and played second flute to Taylor in the Huntington Symphony Orchestra, then studied with Joseph Mariano at the Eastman School of Music. He played second flute and piccolo with Mariano in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1948 until 1952.

Kujala was assistant principal flute in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1954 until 1957 and then piccolo in the orchestra from 1957 until 2002. He also was principal flute in the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra from 1955 until 1960. In the Chicago Symphony, he played under four Music Directors: Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Sir Georg Solti, and Daniel Barenboim. He appeared as soloist with the orchestra on at least nine programs, often performing the piccolo concertos by Vivaldi. For instance, Claudia Cassidy wrote in ''The Chicago Tribune'', "Five of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's front desk men were Fritz Reiner's soloists Saturday night in an engaging performance in Orchestra Hall. Most surprising of the virtuosi was Walfrid Kujala, a tall man with a tiny instrument, who explained by playing one of them why Vivaldi wrote three concertos for the piccolo, or little flute. It was a model of classicism warmed by Venetian charm."

One hundred fifty of Kujala's students commissioned Gunther Schuller to compose his Flute Concerto to honor Kujala's sixtieth birthday, and Kujala played the world premiere with Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on October 13, 1988. John von Rhein wrote, "If one responds most readily to the haunted, glissandi-rich slow movement and to Schuller`s witty finale for flute and piccolo, this is not to deny the effectiveness of the piece as a whole, or the virtuosity with which Kujala and Solti realized it."

Walfrid Kujala taught hundreds of students at Northwestern University from 1962 until 2012 and wrote dozens of articles for The Instrumentalist magazine, ''Flute Talk'', and ''The Flutist Quarterly''. In 1970, he founded Progress Press, which distributed his publications.

Kujala served as the founding secretary and later president of The National Flute Association. The National Flute Association honored Kujala with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Walfrid Kujala died on November 10, 2024 at the age of 99. Provided by Wikipedia