Leonardo De Lorenzo

Leonardo De Lorenzo (29 August 1875 – 29 July 1962) was an Italian virtuoso flautist and music educator. He served as the principal flautist at the New York Philharmonic under Gustav Mahler. Included among his pupils at the Eastman School of Music was the flautist Julius Baker. Biography Born at Viggiano, in the province of Potenza, De Lorenzo started playing the flute at the age of 8 and went to Naples to attend the Music conservatory “San Pietro a Majella”. At 16, he moved to the United States, working at a hotel in Cerulean, Kentucky, but in 1896 he returned to Italy for military service in Alessandria, becoming a member of a military band directed by Giovanni Moranzoni. Subsequently, he began his own career and toured in Italy, Germany, England and South Africa. He joined an orchestra in Cape Town at 25. In 1907, he returned to Naples to complete his studies, then he went to America again, becoming the first flautist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Gustav Mahler, and played with the New York Symphony Orchestra, in substitution of Georges Barrère. He was also a flautist of the orchestras of Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Rochester. In 1914, during his collabora