oboe and the clarinet. Al s early

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1 56 passage too heavily and couldn t get the sound he wanted he gave me a whole talk about purity, about a floating, light sound using all kinds of images. Years later I had the honor to play second bassoon to Eli Carmen in the Symphony of the Air, and when Eli played that passage, Mr. Kovar s voice and words came back to me as though on a tape recorder. I talked to Eli about that he said he had that happen to him often, and that he heard Benjamin Kohon play that passage, and the same happened to him...kovar s words were there. The amazing thing was that Mr. Kovar did not play in the lessons. He was able to explain, to give the music insights through his great understanding and love for the music and for his students. After repertoire, there was always a solo piece and in the course of the five years I was with Mr. Kovar (three years at Manhattan School as first bassoon and two years at Juilliard, and summers at the Music Academy of the West), nearly all the solo pieces and chamber pieces were covered in depth. Mr. Kovar did a great service to many of us and his kindness and humanness shone on us in every way. It was my honor to have known him and to have spent so much time with him. He never took any money for my lessons. I thank him for the great years of music and the love of music that he has instilled in me, and for my successful career, and I know that his students share my feelings. Marvin P. Feinsmith About Marvin P. Feinsmith Marvin is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School with a Master s Degree. He has played principal bassoon with the Indianapolis Symphony; bassoon with the Symphony of the Air; the Little Orchestra Society; assistant principal bassoon with the Denver Symphony Orchestra; solo bassoon with the Leonard Bernstein Mass; and co-principal bassoon, as well as contrabassoon, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The reader is also referred to the article More Reminiscenses of Simon Kovar by Mark Popkin, Marvin Roth, Harold Kohn, and Alan Goodman, which appeared in Vol. 20, No. 1 (pp ) of The Double Reed. When Simon Kovar died in 1970, there was an article about him in the Vol. 1, No.2 (page2) issue of Two the World s Bassoonists. The reader is referred to this article as well. Following the death of Alfred Läubin in 1976, English horn virtuoso Thomas Stacy wrote the article: Alfred Läubin: which was published in Volume 5, No. 1 (p. 1) of To the World s Oboists. It is reprinted below. Alfred Laubin [Editor s Note... It was during a late summer visit with the degourdon family in Paris that I learned of the death of Alfred Laubin {on September 6, 1976). A supporter of the ideals of the IDRS since its inception, and a source of quiet moral support to this editor, he had only recently agreed to be interviewed expressly for this publication by Thomas Stacy. Unfortunately failing health made this impossible. The great oboe maker s instruments are used across the world and he was esteemed as a repairman with virtually no peers; I myself used Laubin oboes in the early years of my orchestral career, and during my visits to the Laubin workshop in Scarsdale I was impressed again and again with Mr. Laubin s unswerving commitment to perfection. I am indebted to Paul Laubin for his cooperation in so many ways, and most especially for making the photographs which accompany this tribute available to me; he will continue the family business at their Elmsford, New York establishment. I also appreciate the sensitive contributions of Thomas Stacy and Bert Gassman, The IDRS officers and membership join me in expressing deep sympathy to the Laubin family in this loss of one of the giants of the oboe world.] Alfred Laubin by Thomas Stacy Alfred Laubin, the most accomplished of American oboe makers, died in September. His creative contributions, as master instrument maker, as well as his patient, kind and gentle manner, will live on with many of us. Alfred was born in 1906 in Detroit, where his father Carl was a charter member of that city s orchestra, playing the oboe and the clarinet. Al s early Alfred Laubin oboe studies were in Boston with Lenom, DeVergie, and Gillet, who exercised the greatest influence on Alfred to start making oboes. He made the first Laubin oboe in Al played in Boston as an extra with the Boston Symphony and at the

2 THE DOUBLE REED 57 Esplanade Concerts. He was the first oboe with the Hartford Symphony under Leonard Bernstein, with the Springfield Symphony and with the New Jersey Symphony. He played second oboe with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Reiner and played the first season, as well as several successive ones, with the New York City opera orchestra. He made oboes in Hartford until He was with Penzel-Mueller in New York for fifteen years and moved to the present shop in Elmsford, New York in His first English horn was made in 1946 or 47. In his early years of instrument making he employed the trial-and-error method, and over the years amassed an immense collection of oboe measurements. His specific contributions were in the field of bore adjustments (using a smaller bore today than in earlier years), different tone hole positioning, and very significantly, the varying of the angles of tone hole undercutting to improve the tone quality of different notes. He convinced many players to begin using the F resonance key. He was also an artist, painting in oils and doing sketching. Laubin oboe number 1462 (this numbering includes some of the approximately 200 English horns) has just been completed (February, 1977) in the shop in Elmsford, where Alfred s son Paul, continues to produce Laubin oboes and English horns. Today Laubin instruments are in use by some of America s leading players, as well as players in Japan, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, the Soviet Union, and Israel. Thomas Stacy is the English horn player of the New York Philharmonic - Ed. The following is from a letter from Bert Gassman, longtime principal oboist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, now retired. Your letter was the first word I had of the passing of my dear friend Al Laubin, a friend I have known since the mid-thirties when the Cleveland Orchestra played in Hartford, Connecticut and a very soft-spoken young man requested me and the other members of the oboe section to try an oboe he had made. We were immensely impressed with his first attempt. Again when I was with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the late forties, Al Laubin made me a very special oboe; I remember showing it to John Minsker and John delancie when the Philadelphia Orchestra played at Carnegie Hall and they were equally impressed. I used the Laubin oboe and English horn after my AK and AL Loree oboes were played out and found that the Laubin excelled in tuning and tone quality beyond all other makes, and I recommended the Laubin instruments to my students, and whenever the Los Angeles Philharmonic toured (to Japan, Europe, the Iron Curtain countries, etc.) to the oboists of these countries as well. Al Laubin never changed. His gentle manner, his help and kindness will never be forgotten by me. My last season before retirement I spent performing in Japan with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony. The weather was extremely cold, and because of the Arab embargo, the concert halls were often without heat, so not surprisingly my oboe developed a crack. I called Al and he made me two special instruments and shipped them to me within three weeks in time to use for my final solo appearance. He was a dedicated master craftsman and a dear friend. I m sure that he leaves many people indebted to him for his dedicated research and creativity. Nora Post conducted an extensive interview with Philip Rigoutat, and his son Claude, which was published as Rigoutat et Fils s.a.-interview with Philip and Claude Rigoutat in Vol. 5, No. 3, Winter, 1982 (pp ) of The Double Reed. It is reprinted below. Rigoutat et Fils s.a. Interview with Philip and Claude Rigoutat July 5, Joinville-le-Pont Nora Post Rigoutat is French for the French. And while they may even admit that they do quite a brisk export business, Rigoutat exudes the We ve got it all/this is civilization attitude which has characterized French thinking since Louis XIV, if not since the time of Charlemagne. But be that as it may. The Rigoutat factory is located in Joinville-le-Pont, a pretty residential suburb located twenty minutes outside Paris. Madame Claude Rigoutat takes care of the office, and her twenty-three year old son Philip directs the factory in the absence of his father, Mr. Roland Rigoutat, who has recently been ill. The Rigoutat oboe began with Philip s grandfather, Charles, and remains the only oboe maker with a direct father to son lineage. The smallest of the major French oboe firms, Rigoutat employs twenty-two workers. Rigoutat oboes are unique in that all stages of production happen in the same place. Marigaux, Howarth, and Lorée each have separate factory facilities outside London or Paris. Not so with Rigoutat. The wood is being aged, the tone holes are being drilled, the keys are being mounted all in two rooms. Three-year wait notwithstanding, numerous

3 58 players swear by Rigoutat, such luminaries as Heinz Holliger and Maurice Bourgue included among them. Reflecting upon this, one cannot help but wonder if there isn t an outside chance that Louis XIV was right after all. NP: When and where did Rigoutat begin? PR: It began in 1922 in Paris, with my grandfather, Charles Rigoutat. Before that, he worked for LeBlanc, Buffet and Lorée. He began at 6 Rue Polonceau, in the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris. In 1968 my father moved the factory here to Joinville because he needed more room. We have twenty-two workers now, though more than half work at home. Three are in the south of France, two or three near Paris, etc. These men either make the keys or do the finishing. NP: How many people worked for your grandfather in the early days of Rigoutat oboes? PR: Just my father. NP: Do you think your goals are different than those of your father and grandfather? PR: No. Though I have benefited from the work and experiments of each of them. NP: Would you ever want to see Rigoutat larger than it is now? PR: No. We are twenty-two now, and that s enough, a good size. NP: Do you have any official title or position here? PR: Who, me? No! The title is made by the customer when they are here, we have titles. But my father, he s the boss! He s a master, a maître, [1] as we say here in France. NP: What do you do here on an average day? PR: That s a good question! My father can make everything himself, but now people can t learn all these things. So I keep the factory running, I solve problems. I also sit like a workman. NP: But when we walked though the back, everyone stopped you with questions. How can you possibly make an oboe? PR: Well, it s easy to work when the factory is closed! We also have certain parts of the manufacturing of Rigoutat which only my father and I know how to do. So we must do these things only he and I really know everything involved in the Rigoutat oboe. It would take about ten days to do these steps for fifty oboes, but with all the interruptions, the workers, etc., it s difficult to say how long it really takes. NP: When did you begin to make oboes? PR: Five years ago, in NP: And how old are you now? PR: I m twenty-three. I played the oboe for seven years, too. I started at about eleven. Then I went to a technical/ machine school for three years, and started working here when I was eighteen. NP: Do you ever find not being a professional oboist to be a problem? PR: No. None of the workmen here play the oboe. You don t have to know how to play the oboe to be able to do this work. This is production work, not the work of an artist. Musicians usually give us the interesting ideas, not the workmen. NP: Let s talk for a moment about distribution. Do you sell to dealers? PR: Yes. We sell about 50% directly to customers, and 50% to dealers. We charge the dealers about 25% less than a private customer. And we give the professional players 10% off. We sell to almost every country in the world. Parts of Africa and the Arab world, mainland China and India these are the only countries we don t sell to. We have dealers in Holland, Argentina, U.S., etc. But we have no written agreement with any of our dealers. NP: Which country is your best customer? PR: France. CR: You see, the oboe is a French specialty for the players and, I think, for the makers, too. So France is the best for this. PR: Also, the advice we get is largely from French players. So we are really making a French oboe for a French musician. NP: What percentage of French professional oboists play Rigoutat? CR: Of the best players, I d say about 60% to 70%. The rest play Marigaux, Buffet and Selmer. No Lorée. Of course, in the U.S. and in Germany, the sound is darker. So I think Lorée makes oboes for a different type of orchestral sound, while Rigoutat makes oboes for the French orchestral sound. And I think it s difficult to be an oboe soloist in France with a Lorée oboe. When you hear someone like Maurice Bourgue, for instance (who plays Rigoutat), you know it s him. They are not in the orchestra, but out of the orchestra. With Lorée, it s difficult to be out of the orchestra. You know, of course, that Mr. Holliger has six or seven Rigoutats. PR: And he never sells his old oboes! He keeps all his old Rigoutats. I don t know why, really. NP: Not like the rest of us, who are buying and selling quite often! If I bought five oboes, I d certainly have to sell a few. CR: Yes, in France, too. If a player buys one oboe, he sells another. NP: Of course, there s one other problem. With more than one oboe, it s hard to keep both instruments playing well, what with adjustments, reeds, repairs, etc. If you prefer one, you don t play the other, and then when you need that oboe, it s out of adjustment. PR: Yes, I agree. In France, players find it impossible to play one oboe on Monday, another on

4 THE DOUBLE REED 59 Madame Claude Rigoutat and her son, Philip. Tuesday. The oboes will be different, and the French are completely lost. NP: Me, too. But let me ask you another question. Do most of your players come here to pick out an oboe? PR: The Europeans, yes. Though in Eastern Europe and Russia, often the government buys the oboe, not the player. NP: You know, when you mentioned that France is your best customer, I didn t ask you who your second best customer is. Which country is it? PR: Holland. CR: It used to be Robert Gilbert of Los Angeles, and Japan is good, but Holland is the second best customer right now. NP: Are most of your oboes for Holland made with automatic octave key? PR: 90% yes. Plus third octave, of course. NP: How many oboes do you sell in a year? PR: Between six and seven hundred, including English horns, oboes d amore, and student oboes. The student oboes, RIEC, make up about 50% of our production, at 6,500 francs right now. The professional model is about 10,000 francs. When the music conservatories in France buy our student oboes, we give them a price of 4,000 francs. But this is a simpler system oboe. About 8% of our production is these oboes maybe fifty instruments each year. We make about twenty oboes d amore a year, and about one hundred English horns. NP: Any bass oboes? PR: None. But we are planning on making one. It will be finished when we finish it! Somewhere roughly between two months and ten years... NP: What pitch are your oboes? PR: 442. But any two musicians don t play with exactly the same pitch, so it s difficult to say. Somewhere between 442 and 444. NP: Do you make any oboes at 440? PR: No. NP: Interesting. In the U.S. we have to play at 440. PR: And in Germany they have to play at 447. It s not possible to make all these oboes. So you take a staple at 48 to play at 440, a staple at 45 to play at 447. NP: Or you go crazy! But tell me, you make automatic systems, thumbplates, Prestini systems, double F, double C#, right? PR: Yes. Whatever you want. If you want it, we ll do it! Anything. NP: Do most Italians play the Prestini system? PR: Yes. Over 80% of them play it, since that s the instrument they learn on. We probably sell about fifty oboes to Italy in a year, and the dealers would like many more. For the English, we send oboes to Howarth with double F and third octave. If the customer wants a thumbplate, Howarth adds it. But when we sell directly to an English player who wants a thumbplate we make it ourselves. NP: Do you sell a lot to England? PR: Maybe one or two a month. We just can t make more with our current waiting list. You know, in some ways it s easier for de Gourdon. Since we are in the country where we sell the most instruments, the players arrive here when they want to and, of course, we see them. NP: Do you see any trends in oboe manufacturing? PR: Well, I ll tell you. One real problem is the automatic system where there are so many holes drilled, posts, and so much metal on the top joint that it can crack easily. But I think players will go right on as they do now. You learn from your teacher, and you learn what the teacher plays. Of course, certain things in modern music cannot be played with the automatic system. We also make a semi-automatic system, where you have the choice of using the automatic system or non-automatic (i.e., second octave key). We are getting requests for that from Germans and Eastern Europeans who want to play modern music. NP: I see. But let s go on: I had wanted to ask you about the cost of your materials. PR: For us, materials are 18%. 82% is labor. We buy silver and nickel silver here in France. We buy our wood through a German dealer. We order about fifteen hundred pieces at once and we age it here for about four years. We make about fifty oboes at once. NP: What part of making an oboe takes the most time to do? PR: Making the keys. I should also explain that our workers are trained right here. They begin as apprentices. It takes about two years to train a finisher, and three years to train a man who makes keywork. They work with each other the

5 60 experienced workers teach the younger ones. Of, say, seventeen apprentices, about sixteen will stay with us. Those who don t stay usually go into the repair business. NP: We live in a throw-away society. It s tough and getting tougher to get your car or air conditioner fixed. Do you find you have problems maintaining the level of craftsmanship you want? PR: Well, I can t really speak of the past, because I just don t know. What I can tell you is that people are very happy with our oboes right now. The tuning is much better than it was twenty years ago, as is the sound. Both players and makers have made progress together. NP: We haven t talked about players: do you have a number of players who influence your ideas in manufacturing? PR: If it s a good idea, yes. If it s a bad idea, no. NP: And how do you tell the difference? PR: You try it and you see. NP: Well, that s expensive! PR: Though sometimes musicians change their ideas faster than it s possible to change the oboe, or they get an idea and then change it in six months. It s very difficult to make one oboe for everybody. Some players can t play Rigoutat, or can t play Marigaux, or can t play Lorée; you have people who can play one of these and none of the others! NP: Do teachers here in France ever tell their students they must play on a certain oboe? CR: No, not really. People might tell a student that their present instrument is not good, but that s about all. They don t say, Rigoutat is better. Mr. Pierlot, for instance, sees all sorts of instruments in his class at the conservatory. He himself plays a Buffet oboe, but as long as the student is happy with an oboe, Mr. Pierlot doesn t say anything. NP: When you do the final testing of an oboe, do you bring in anyone to do the tuning? PR: Yes, Mr. Maisonneuve of the Paris Opera. He has tuned our oboes for over twenty years, and is here twice a month. We cannot always see the changes that happen in the thinking of the players, so it is good for us to have someone like Mr. Maisonneuve who, incidentally, took Pierlot s job in the Opera. NP: Before we finish, I d like to ask about your American market. How long has Robert Gilbert sold your oboes in the U.S.? PR: Well, he knew my grandfather before I was born. So I guess it s about thirty years. NP: Are you happy with your American market? PR: Well, we just can t produce more! With a three-year waiting list, we are really quite happy. We won t make more, so if there was a great demand, the waiting list would just get longer. I have one question for you. What do you think of the oboe you played here earlier today? NP: Well, I can t really tell, because my reed is made for such a different oboe. The oboe plays like a new oboe it isn t free enough for me. Right now I m used to a very played in oboe, so I am afraid that I am not a very good judge. And I d have to make a reed for a Rigoutat to be able to evaluate fairly. But I have played some Rigoutat oboes that were spectacular I m thinking mostly of Holliger s oboes and English horns. They played themselves. But let s go on. Of Lorée, Marigaux and Rigoutat, I find it very interesting that you alone have maintained a direct father to son to son line. CR: Yes. And there are other differences With Marigaux and Selmer, the boss is in the office, but with Lorée and us the boss makes oboes. PR: Mr. Rilba is the boss of Marigaux. If you go to see him, you don t give him your oboe. You see him, you say hello, and then you go to the factory with your oboe. Here you say hello to Mr. Rigoutat and you give him your oboe. NP: Does that make a real difference? CR: Oh yes. First of all, in the quality of the work. Secondly, in the attitude of the shop. My husband knows all the workers so well. With Lorée, Alain s sister is in the office as am I and we can assume more responsibility than if we were not part of the family. NP: So would you say that if the business is kept in the family, you stand a better chance of making a good oboe? PR: Yes, providing, of course, that you are serious. NP: Well, how did you manage to keep the business in the family for three generations? How did you do it? PR: I don t know! But we are here. U.S. Importer: Robert D. Gilbert 943 N. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, California Footnotes [1] Roland Rigoutat is the only oboe maker today to have been awarded the title of maitre artisan or master craftsman, from the French government. Given through examination in other professions, there is no exam for oboe manufacture; Mr. Rigoutat s title is thus one of honor and recognition from France. Concern over the sudden proliferation of Honorary Members and the problem of posthumous awardings of Honorary Membership the following

6 THE DOUBLE REED 61 announcement appeared in the Spring, 1996 (Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 8) issue of The Double Reed: NEW GUIDELINES FOR SELECTING HONORARY MEMBERS At the annual mid-winter meeting of the Executive Committee of the IDRS on January 7-9, 1996, the following further guidelines were adopted concerning Honorary Membership: 1. Members wishing to nominate someone for Honorary Membership in the IDRS must direct nominations, with a short biographical sketch of the candidate, to any member of the Honorary Membership Nomination Committee. 2. A candidate for Honorary Membership will have completed meritorious service to the area of double reed performance, teaching, instrument making, repair, reedmaking, etc. They must be retired from their primary position. 3. Only living members of the Society will be eligible for candidacy for Honorary Membership. 4. All nomination materials and procedures will be kept strictly confidential. 5. The Nominating Committee will nominate no more than two candidates per year. The Executive Committee will approve the nominated slate. Oboist and musical instrument curator and collector Philip Bate (b. 1909) became the thirtyninth Honorary Member of the IDRS with his election at the 25th Anniversary Conference at Tallahassee, Florida, in June, The following report appeared in Vol. 19, No. 2 (p. 94) of The Double Reed: IDRS Elects Philip Bate as New Honorary Member Ronald Klimko - Moscow, Idaho At the 25th Anniversary Conference of the International Double Reed Society at Florida State University last June, the present members of the Society unanimously elected British music scholar Philip Bate to Honorary Membership. Philip Bate was born in 1909 in Glasgow, Scotland to English parents. His father was a museum curator and his mother a pianist and contralto singer. After his studies, he became a music producer for the BBC while maintaining a life-long interest in woodwind instruments. For his live television series, The Conductor Speaks, he was able to convince such famous conductors as Stokowski, Sargent, Beecham, and many others to participate in this important project. He was also involved with the Edinburgh Festival and brought the Paris Opera Ballet to England for the first time. In 1956 Philip Bate published his book The Oboe, which is now in its third edition and still remains the only significant full-length English language reference work for this instrument. He has also contributed scholarly articles on the oboe and English horn to the Grove s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and the New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. He was also author of The Flute, The Trumpet and Trombone, and the revised and enlarged edition of The Clarinet by F. Geoffrey Randall. Maintaining his interest in woodwind scholarship, Philip Bate was one of the founding members of the Galpin Society and was for many years its President. Collaboration with IDRS Honorary Member, Lyndesay G. Langwill and Adam Carse led to his extensive collection of wind instruments, which was eventually donated to Oxford University, where it resides as the Bate Collection of Historical Instruments. There it is now available for study and use in performance of period music. In recognition of his lifelong research, he was awarded an honorary MA degree by Oxford University. Now officially retired, Philip Bate resides in London where he continues to collect instruments and maintains a lively interest in woodwind instruments. The IDRS is pleased and honored to add the name of Philip Bate to its distinguished list of Honorary Members. The awarding of Honorary Member number forty took place when the distinguished bassoon artist, scholar and repairman Lewis Hugh Cooper (b. 1920) was elected on June 29, 1997, at the IDRS Conference in Evanston, Illinois. The following report appeared in Vol. 20, No.2 (p. 12) of The Double Reed: New IDRS Honorary Member: Lewis Hugh Cooper At the General Meeting of the IDRS in Evanston, Illinois, on June 29, 1997, the membership present unanimously acclaimed Lewis Hugh Cooper as a new Honorary Member of the Society. Lewis Hugh Cooper was born in Pontiac, Michigan on New Year s Eve December 31, Hugh s early musical training began under the guidance of Dale C. Harris, superintendent of Pontiac s then superb instrumental music

7 62 IDRS founder and latest honorary member, Hugh Cooper and his steadfast partner, Nan. program. Following graduation from high school, he was recruited by William D. Revelli, and in 1938 enrolled as a freshman at the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor. Hugh s choice proved to be fortuitous for Michigan s high performance standards under the leadership of William Revelli, Thor Johnson, and Eric De Lamarter, coupled with gracious help freely given by a steady stream of touring professional orchestra bassoonists such as Sol Schoenbach, Simon Kovar, Hugo Fox and many others, contributed to Hugh s development as a performer and awakened his insatiable thirst for knowledge pertaining to his chosen profession. L. Hugh Cooper s long, fruitful association with the University of Michigan continued unbroken until his retirement May 31, 1997 after serving 52 years (!) as their bassoon teacher. Hugh was already a part-time instructor of bassoon at the University beginning in 1945, a full eleven years prior to receiving his B. Mus. degree. Prof. Cooper is the longest serving University of Michigan faculty member of record. Hugh was concurrently a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra bassoon section from , performing under three permanent conductors (Karl Kruger, Paul Paray, Sixten Ehrling) and numerous guest conductors including Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, George Szell, Antal Dorati, Sir Thomas Beecham, Leonard Bernstein, Fritz Reiner, and Dmitri Mitropoulos. He was a charter member of the University of Michigan Faculty Woodwind Quintet with whom he extensively performed from Hugh also was one of the Founding Members instrumental in organizing the International Double Reed Society in 1971, hosted the Society s first conference in Ann Arbor in 1972, and served as an IDRS vice-president for six years ( ). L. Hugh Cooper is widely regarded as one of the finest teachers of the century. Although the list would be far too long to annotate here, many of his students are now serving in major orchestras and universities. His curiosity, enthusiasm and insistence on the highest standards of performance and scholarship, both for himself as well as his students and peers, has been an inspiration to all who have had the good fortune to know him. In addition, Hugh is recognized as a leading authority on the acoustics of woodwind instruments and is responsible for the development and manufacture of Cooper- Püchner bassoons. He was and still is one of the most sought-after bassoon repair technicians, the same high standards that he insisted on in performance and scholarship are no less evident in his own work on instruments new and old. Hugh carries on in the wonderful tradition of the great master craftsman W. Hans Moennig. Cooper s book Essentials of Bassoon Technique, an encyclopedic listing of bassoon fingerings and their usage, is considered the definitive work in its field. Numerous other published technical articles firmly establish Hugh as an internationally recognized double reed expert. Lewis Hugh Cooper has excelled in so many aspects of music that he represents the prototypical Renaissance Man of the bassoon world. As performer, teacher, researcher, author, designer, craftsman, he exemplifies the consummate model and inspiration for all of us. He is certainly a worthy addition to the IDRS Honorary Membership roster. It is appropriate that we honor these forty distinguished artists of the modern world of the double reed musician. Collectively they have given to all of us much more than we could ever begin to repay. Their honor is our honor.and because they are the very backbone of the collective body of our artistry, their heritage will continue and sustain us both into the 21st century and beyond.