Bill Holcombe Tribute Concert

Dear Flute Friends,

I attended a concert to honor Bill Holcombe this past Sunday, a tribute to the man and his music, put on by 40 of his friends. Many may not know it but Bill is very ill with terminal cancer. He is very frail and now in a wheelchair. Many of you know Bill Holcombe for his flute arrangements. However, most of the music world knows him for his work with concert band, strings, sax quartets, brass quintets and jazz band. He has had a career many musicians can only dream about. This concert was totally his arrangements and compositions. None of his flute works were showcased. His friends must have traveled from all over to be part of this one time event because I and the local musicians performing did not recognize most of the band members. Two links were sent in an e-mail I received the night before the concert. The first is a to an article in one of our local newspapers. The second is for a facebook page set up by someone for Bill. I thought many would like to know about Bill and his condition as well as reading about his amazing music career.

http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2010/04/07/news/doc4bbd47ae2b5e9018740365.txt

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bill-Holcombe/111104098909954?ref=ts

Although this was an amazing concert with phenomenal musicians, it was sad to see Bill in this condition. However, he still has that smile and of course a lot to say between songs. His wife Helen of 60 years was going to sing a song but didn’t in the end. Although we don’t see that much of one another, Bill and I live only about 15 minutes apart.