Obituary: Peter Standaart, 70

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Peter Standaart passed away on Sunday, September 16, 2018 at the age of 70. The cause of death was cancer. Peter was born in Richmond, Virginia and grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. He was of Dutch descent, and came from a musical family; his father was a renowned organ builder and his mother an organist. He was educated at Duke University, the North Carolina School for the Arts, and Yale University. His principal teachers were Charles Delaney, Emil Medicus, and Thomas Nyfenger.

Peter came to Wesleyan University in 1975 and continued to teach flute until shortly before his death. His knowledge of the flute literature was encyclopedic, and his influence as a pedagogue and a champion of music for the flute was enormous. He performed many times with the Wesleyan Orchestra — the Nielsen Concerto and the Griffes Poem (conducted by Roger Solie), the Mozart Concert for Flute and Harp, with Sally Perreten (conducted by Melvin Strauss), and most recently the Honegger Concerto da Camera for Flute, English Horn and String Orchestra, with Libby Van Cleve (conducted by Nadya Potemkina).

He premiered many new works for flute, including compositions of his Wesleyan colleagues. He also performed contemporary works of extraordinary difficulty by Pierre Boulez and Henry Brant. Brant said that Peter Standaart was the finest flutist he had ever heard.

Peter was very deeply involved in the Middletown community and with many community organizations throughout Connecticut. In addition to his countless appearances at Wesleyan, he frequently performed at South Congregational Church, Russell Library, and St. Francis Church in New Haven. He spent many years in the orchestra pit at Goodspeed Opera. During rehearsals there, the actor Tom Hulce was so taken with Peter’s wildly uproarious laugh that he adapted it for his lead role in Amadeus a couple of years later.

In recent years he was a member of two trios devoted to performing Baroque music; Burning Bush Baroque, and High Voltage Baroque. He was a founding member of the Connecticut Flute Orchestra and the co-founder of “Flutes in the Woods”, a Middletown performance series for regional flutists.

He had a deep spiritual perspective that combined elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, astrology, and jin shin jyutsu. In recent years, he was a devotee of Swami Mukundananda. He was also associated with the Radical Faeries. As long as his health permitted, he was an avid outdoorsman, swimming, sailing and camping here and abroad.

Perhaps beyond all else, it was his legendary ability to connect with people’s hearts, with and without the flute, that remains his greatest legacy. Peter leaves an enormous shimmering space in all who knew him, and a powerful call to creative expression in all forms.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. on Saturday, October 27, 2018 at the Wesleyan Memorial Chapel, 221 High Street, Middletown, CT. A reception at Russell House will immediately follow.

In lieu of flowers, honorary donations can be made to:

BlackledgeMusic, Inc.

48 White Birch Road

East Hampton, CT 06424

https://www.gofundme.com/ct-fl...

Jagadguru Kripaluji Yog, USA

38 Highland Street

Rocky Hill, CT 06067

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin...

Middlesex Hospital Cancer Center Integrative Medicine Program

c/o Office of Development

28 Crescent Street

Middletown, CT 06457

middlesexhospital.org/donate

Contributed obituary and photo