The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 103, Ed. 1 Friday, April 20, 1979 Page: 3 of 8
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Friday, April 20, 1979
THE NORTH TUX AS DAILY-PAGE 2
James Kilpatrick constructs a flute that takes 250 hours to build
Repairman fashions flutes
Craftsman turns silver tubes into music makers
By KATHLYN AUTEN
Daily Reporter
James R. Kilpatrick works strictly
with silver and gold, but he’s not a
banker and he’s not a jeweler.
Kilpatrick, who was the instru-
ment repairman at NT until he
retired in August, is one of less than a
dozen men in the world who makes
flutes by hand.
His name is listed in the “Directory
of Wind Instrument Makers.”
Kilpatrick makes flutes by com-
mission only and doesn’t heep them
in stock. He has sold his flutes to peo-
ple in places such as Illinois, Dallas,
Fort Worth and in Denton. The solo
flutist in the Marine band bought
one; Geroge Hummel, an NT
graduate and member of the Air
Force band, has one; and NT music
professor has one; and the School of
M usic has one of his piccolos.
Each flute takes Kilpatrick about
250 hours to make. Most are sold at a
price “in the neighborhood’’ of
$1,500, a price Kilpatrick said is high
for students, but reasonable for a
handmade instrument.
Kilpatrick has been making flutes
for 25 years and taught himself the
art. Before he began making flutes,
he was a high school flute teacher in
Dallas. Out of necessity, he learned
to repair instruments because
repairmen were scarce and repairs
were often costly. From repair work,
he moved into instrument building.
Most of the other flutemakers,
he said, are probably self-taught or
grew up in the business and were
taught by their fathers.
Kilpatrick makes most of his flutes
from silver, which he orders from
Massachusetts. Silver, he said, has
the right acoustical qualities, is
pliable and is cheaper than other
precious metals. He made a gold flute
for a member of the Dallas
Symphomy and said the gold one
sells lor $8,UOU.
He doesn’t make platinum flutes.
“Platinum is expensive, and that's
it,” he said. "Platinum flutes don’t
play better
A path of stepping stones leads
from Kilpatrick's house to his
workshop, housed in a neat, one-
room building. In the center of the
floor is a large lathe, the main
machine used in any manufacturing
procedure.
Kilpatrick makes his own parts,
with the exception of the flute’s pads.
He uses a punch press and dyes to
punch the parts out.
To make a flute, he begins with a
plain, unadorned silver tube Then he
begins soldering.
Kilpatrick, who began an instru-
ment repair and an instrument
building course at the NT School of
Music, doesn’t think flute making
will become a popular profession.
“It’s tedious work, and you don’t
make much money at it,” he said.
Kilpatrick doesn’t own any of his
flutes.
“I’ve never had one of my own,”
he said. “I can’t afford it.”
NT graduate exhibits work
Artist's a-"maze"-ing hobby
yields mind-tickling puzzles
By CHERYLTAYLOR
Daily Reporter
Art is often puzzling, but the work of
Development Office employee Bruce
Hodges is intentionally so.
Hodges, a 1976 cum laude graduate of
NT with a major in drawing and
painting, creates mazes, 15 of which will
be displayed in the University Union Art
Gallery today through May 3.
The puzzle-mazes, which are for sale,
come in various sizes. “They have
gradually gotten larger and larger,”
Hodges said. The larger ones, he added,
would take more than a week to solve.
A FASCINATION that began in his
childhood, maze-drawing didn't occupy
Hodges’ time at NT until four years ago.
“I started doing them in the fifth or sixth
grade, drawing them and giving them to
classmates to work,” he said. “I soon
stopped doing them.
“While at North Texas I had done my
usual art student quota of drawing and
painting and was looking for something
different to work on, when I
remembered that I had once done these.
That started it all.”
Prior to his maze work, Hodges did
abstract paintings, cartoons and design
work. “A couple of my teachers realized
the maze work was a big step for me—
the most committed I’d been to my
work,” he said. “I still do cartoons and
design work, too, though,”
HODGES IS AN admirer of 27-year-
old British maze builder Greg Bright,
who “is the only person I know of who
does mazes and has artistic sensibility.
He has maze-making down to a
science.”
The colors of the puzzles range from
very bright to quite subtle, Hodges said.
His ink, colored pencil and watercolor
mazes are strictly for artistic appeal.
They are brainteasers, he said.
There is a definite technique to
building the mazes on paper, Hodges
said. “Basically, I decide where the maze
will begin, keep separating the paths,
dividing one into two, two into four,
Orchestra to play student's work
“Sinfonietta” by Philip Baczewski will
be premiered by the NT Chamber
Orchestra, directed by Anshel Brusilow,
at 8:15 p.m. Monday in the NT Concert
Hall.
Baczewski, a Houston master’s degree
candidate in composition, will be
awarded a $200 cash prize for his work
bv the Denton Alumnae Chapter of
Sigma Alpha Iota, the international
music fraternity for women.
THE COMPETITION, sponsored
by the chapter, was open to composition
Recital to present
Loomis' compositions,
jazz band performers
Paul Loomis, Washington, D.C.
senior, will present his senior composi-
tion recital at 7:15 p.m. Monday in the
NT Recital Hall.
FOUR OF HIS compositions com-
prise the program: “Sonata” for Flute
and piano, ’’Bi-lateral Symmetry” for
woodwind quintet, a three-movement
string quintet and “The Command," a
concerto for jazz orchestra. “The Com-
mand" features horn players from the I
O’Clock Lab Band.
Lnx Men. Women
U./1 and Children
"Hail*
‘\ffair
TUES.-SAT 10 AM-7 PM
students who had to compose a work for
the Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Marceau
Myders, dean of the School of Music,
will make the presentation at the con-
cert, which is an annual event of the
Denton fraternity.
Three students of maestro Brusilow
will also conduct the Chamber
Orchestra at the concert. Welaco
graduate student Adron Ming and La
Marque graduate student David
Saunders will conduct different move-
ments of Beethoven’s “Symphony No.
I,” David Schimmel will conduct
Samuel Barber's “Summer of 1915,”
which will be sung by soprano Diana
Hughes. Both Miss Hughes and Schim-
mel are faculty members at Mountain
View College in Dallas.
THE PROGRAM will open with per-
formances by members of the Denton
fraternity members. Pianists Jean
Mainous and Mary Nan Mailman will
play "Incantations” by Merrill Ellis,
director of NT’s Electronic Music
Center.
Pianist Judy Fisher and flutist Pamela
Youngblood will perform “Sonata for
Flute and Piano” by Dr. Malina Kuss of
the music faculty.
ALSO ON the program is “Sea
Songs” by Emily Crocker, fraternity
member who teaches music in Carroll-
ton and is a student at TWU. Mrs.
Crocker will be pianist for her composi-
tion, which also features flute and
soprano voice.
There is no admission charge to the
concert, which is open to the public.
JhiM I Hull Prodiu ts
383-2821
151? West Hickory
Pre-Inventory
SALE
Up to
40% Off
On Selected
Display Items.
North Texas Electronics
818 W. University • Denton Center
The Complete Electronics Supermarket
presents
'A touch of countryclass.'
then four into eight and so on.
EVENTUALLY, I end up with 20 or
30 loose ends, and then I close off about
three-fourths of these: the rest lead to
the end. Generally my mazes are so large
it would be too frustrating to have only
one path to the end. You’d be working
at it for months.”
Hodges admitted the difficulty of the
mazes is part of the fun in making them.
“I like for people to be impressed with
the difficulty of some of them.”
Due to security problems, visitors to
the Gallery will be unable to work the
mazes. At home, however, Hodges often
provides his guests with a sheet of plastic
to place over the maze and felt tip pen,
letting them have a try at getting
through the passages.
But Hodges doesn’t turn to his mazes
to relax from the days of research and
writing grant proposals for the Develop-
ment office. “I do Hatha yoga and run
three or four miles a day,” he said. “I
have noticed both help my work a great
deal. Yoga develops your concentration.”
<?f tf
April 26, 27,28
Calico
May 3,4,5
Side of the
Road Gang
May 10,11,12
Alex Harvey
The progressive Bluegrass Mountain Smoke Band will be giving a taste of
the selections they presented for President Carter at their special
Presidential Invitation Concert at the Longbranch. Not only have they
appeared by special request at the White House, they have also played in
concert with such well known artists as David Allan Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker,
Michael Murphy, Jimmy Buffett, and Arlo Guthrie to name a tew.
Lunch 11-2 Tues-Fri
Hrs. 5-12 Tues-Fri
5-1 Sat
APPEARING: April 20 & 21
Memberships available/Not Necessary for Restaurant
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Morrison, Sue. The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 103, Ed. 1 Friday, April 20, 1979, newspaper, April 20, 1979; Denton, TX. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1003836/m1/3/?q=waco+tornado: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.