Walfred Kujala IN MEMORIAM

My dear friends and colleagues: yesterday, November 10th, our father, Walfrid ‘Wally’ Kujala passed away peacefully after a short illness, just a few months shy of his 100th birthday. The news has been spreading throughout the flute community via his widow, Sherry, and notices from the Chicago Symphony and Northwestern University.

Dad was a wonderful father/grandfather and great grandfather, flutist, piccoloist, pedagogue, author, mentor, and an all-around Kujolly good fellow. Always a smile on his face, never an unkind word to say about anyone or anything, and just a beautiful spirit and soul.

And on this Veteran’s day, we also honor dad for his service during WWII as a member of the Army’s 86th Infantry band.

My sister, Gwen Stein, and brother Dan Kujala would like to thank all of dad’s former students and colleagues for your heartfelt outpouring of affection and admiration. It means so very much to us, and please know that dad held each and every one of you in high esteem.

I’d also like to thank the excellent hospice staff at Casa Del Marre in Kenosha, WI, for helping dad through his transition, and of course to Sherry, for her steadfast love and affection for ‘Wally’ through several decades.

Dad was able to complete about 95% of his memoir, which he began writing in 1997 around the time of that year’s NFA convention in Chicago. I had been receiving a steady stream of pdf’s of chapters-in-progress throughout the years, and I am so impressed with his style, content, grammer and structure. Those of you who have read his numerous scholarly articles over the decades know what I mean! We hope to have a ‘final’ version ready for release to his adoring fans sometime in 2025.

Sherry will be reaching out to NU’s Alice Millar Chapel to secure a date for a Celebration Of Life on or about February 19th, which would have been his Centennial birthday. We’ll keep you posted about that.

In the meantime, I wanted to link you to YouTube for one of my favorite piccolo solos that dad recorded with the CSO and Maestro Solti back in 1972. This is the final movement of Mahler’s 8th symphony (“Symphony of a Thousand”), just before the mixed choir comes in and sends us into a miraculous climax.

I’ve always had a soft spot for this particular solo and piece, as I was privileged to have attended several of the recording sessions in Vienna on the CSO’s very first European tour. I hope you enjoy it. You’ll have to scroll to around the 1:12:45 mark for the intro to the solo - but believe me, you’ll find yourself sticking around unril the glorious end, featuring the fabulous Chicago Symphony, mixed choir, Vienna Boys choir and 8 soloists! Bravo Dad, and Bravissimi Tutti!!!

--Stephen Kujala

Here’s the link: