James Galway

Sir James Galway born 8 December 1939 is an Irish virtuoso flute player from Belfast nicknamed The Man with the Golden Flute He established an international career as a solo flute player In 2005 he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Classic Brit Awards Galway was born in North Belfast as one of two brothers His father who played the flute was employed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard until the end of the Second World War and spent nightshifts cleaning buses after the war while his mother a pianist was a winder in a flaxspinning mill Raised as a Presbyterian and surrounded by a tradition of flute bands and many friends and family members who played the instrument he was taught the flute by his uncle at the age of nine and joined his fife and drum corps At the age of eleven Galway won the junior senior and open Belfast flute Championships in a single day His first instrument was a fivekey Irish flute and at the age of twelve or thirteen he received a Boehm instrument Galway was educated at Mountcollyer Secondary Modern School in Belfast He left school at the age of fourteen and worked as an apprentice to a piano repairer for two years He subsequently studied the flute at the Royal College of Music under John Francis and at the Guildhall School of Music under Geoffrey Gilbert He then briefly studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Gaston Crunelle While in Paris he asked for lessons from the celebrated French flute player JeanPierre Rampal who offered him advice on his playing but felt he was already too good a flute player to need lessons from either Rampal or the conservatory He left Paris to take up his first orchestral fluteplaying job at Sadlers Wells Opera in London He went on to spend fifteen years as an orchestral player In addition to Sadlers Wells he played with Covent Garden Opera the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra He auditioned for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan and was principal flute in the orchestra from 1969 to 1975 To Karajans surprise and dismay after a period of some disagreement Galway decided that he would leave to pursue a solo career In addition to his performances of the standard classical repertoire he features contemporary music in his programmes including new flute works commissioned by and for him by composers including David Amram Malcolm Arnold William Bolcom John Corigliano John Wolf Brennan Dave Heath Lowell Liebermann and Joaquín Rodrigo The album James Galway and The Chieftains in Ireland by Galway and The Chieftains reached number 32 in the UK Albums Chart in 1987 Galway still performs regularly and is one of the worlds bestknown flute players His recordings have sold over 30 million copies Source Article James Galway from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30