Author’s notes on Book 2:

As work for a fourth printing of The Gilbert Legacy progressed, it became clear that major revisions were needed—editing, updating—essentially a facelift for a book that took shape in the 1980s. During this process, questions arose that required additional research. These directed me to excellent online resources, including recent dissertations, websites, and publications that examined the history of British orchestras, offering connections to Gilbert’s career and his contemporaries. Through these materials, I discovered several glaring inconsistencies in Gilbert’s biographical details. The vast amount of new information uncovered during the research and writing process led me to divide the expanded material into two volumes. The Gilbert Legacy, Book 1: Methods, Exercises, and Techniques for the Flutist—serves as a second edition of the original book and includes revisions, updated material, and significant additions to both content and structure. More importantly, this second edition aligns with the intent of the original treatise, emphasizing Gilbert’s methodical and masterful teaching approach.

The Gilbert Legacy, Book 2: The Life of a Visionary Flutist will offer a wealth of well-researched information that delves into the intricate details of Gilbert’s life as a professional musician of the highest caliber. Winzer Press LLC is working towards the publication of this new biographical volume. The Gilbert Legacy, Book 2: The Life of a Visionary Flutist explores Gilbert’s unique experiences at the peak of his career in London—one of the world’s most significant cultural centers during a time when orchestral music and concert artistry thrived and enjoyed widespread popularity—and much, much more.

Since the 1980s, I have learned an astonishing amount about Geoffrey Gilbert: the remarkable details of his life, the merits of his contributions to British orchestras and to chamber music through his work with The Wigmore Ensemble, all leading to his enormously successful career as a brilliant and influential orchestral principal, flute teacher, and conductor. Geoffrey Gilbert was a child prodigy with perfect pitch who was homeschooled after age twelve. He played piano, flute, and oboe, possessed a virtuoso flute technique by age sixteen, and courageously led a transformation from wooden flute to silver flute in the United Kingdom by adopting the French style. Gilbert devoted his life to a challenging profession as an orchestral principal, one who walked hand in hand with twentieth-century music history and the ongoing challenge for the survival of British orchestras. Monya Gilbert and her family have entrusted the Gilbert Family Archives to my care.

As my research progressed, supported by these primary source materials, the extraordinary details of Gilbert’s life unfolded and have been expanded into a second volume. The brief overview of Gilbert’s life and accomplishments, originally covered in chapter 1 of the first edition, has evolved into an in-depth and complete account of Gilbert’s remarkable life in this second volume: The Gilbert Legacy, Book 2: The Life of a Visionary Flutist.