GBFA! Where Did It Come From?

by Fenwick Smith

Greater Boston Flute Association evolved from the long-standing personal and professional friendship that Leone Buyse and I have enjoyed since the late 1960s, when we were both students of Joseph Mariano at the Eastman School of Music. This relationship was cemented some fifteen years later when we became colleagues in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1991 we were among the performers at the National Flute Association (NFA) Convention, which benefited greatly from the indispensable on-site convention staff mobilized by the Flute Society of Washington. By then it had been announced that the 1993 convention was to be held in Boston. This was the main catalyst: we knew that someone would have to organize a small army of dedicated volunteers to attend to the myriad details that make the NFA’s annual conventions possible.

We also thought it was high time that Boston should have its own flute society. Boston has been a world center for flute-making for a century now, and with a world class orchestra, a large pool of fine freelance players, several schools and conservatories of music, and an enthusiastic musical public, we were convinced that Boston needed its own flute society, even if it didn’t know it yet. The Boston Symphony Orchestra thoughtfully scheduled a European tour directly following the 1991 NFA Convention, giving Leone and me ample time standing in line at airports and sitting together on long flights, to brainstorm about a Boston flute society. In the course of the tour we came up with a name for the organization, a mission statement, and the broad outlines of an organization.

When we returned from our travels we set to work. Brenda (Bonnie) Levy, a dedicated amateur flutist and capable attorney, guided us through the process of establishing GBFA as a Massachusetts Non-profit Organization, with all the I’s dotted and all the T’s crossed on our Articles of Organization, By-laws, and other legal documents. In the meantime, we organized GBFA’s first function, a public meeting held at the First Parish Church in Watertown on Sunday afternoon, March 15, 1992. We invited as many flutists as we could think of, and with Paula Robison lecturing on Marcel Moyse as our star attraction, an enthusiastic crowd showed up. From this group came the nucleus of board members and other volunteers that grew into the organization we know today.

Fulfilling one of the initial missions of the group, a well-organized corps of GBFA volunteers was at the ready for the NFA’s national convention, held August 1992 in Boston. Our first full season, 1992-93, established the annual pattern of three major public events, including concerts, master classes, and more recently the popular annual Flute Fair. In the ten years since that inaugural season, GBFA (affectionately referred to as “Gibfa”) has grown to include some 500 individual and corporate members, and presents a broad array of opportunities for flutists of all ages and levels of ability. Leone and I are proud and delighted to be presented in concert by this flourishing organization, and we wish to thank the many dedicated volunteers who have made this concert—and the first ten years of GBFA—a reality.