In Memoriam

Bent Lylloff
Bent Lylloff, known to many as the "Dean of Scandinavian Percussion," died on March 7.

His musical career included jazz symphonic, opera and avant-garde music. Lylloff began studying drums at the age of seven, marching in a Boy Scout band. At the age of ten he began studying piano and mallet instruments. After studies with Danish teachers, he continued studies with Gilbert Webster in London, Robert Tourte in Paris, and Morris Goldenberg and Saul Goodman at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Lylloff was at the forefront of Scandinavian percussion music for many years as a result of his accomplishments as a recording artist, his concert tours, and his educational clinics and master classes. From 1961 to 1989 he served as Principal Percussionist and Timpanist with the Royal Danish Orchestra. He worked with many prominent composers and conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Monteux, Georg Solti, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Pierre Boulez, Witold Lutoslavski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Benjamin Britten, Andre Previn, Eugene Ormandy, Otto Klemperer and Charles Munch. He also worked with such popular artists as Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Lena Horne, Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Harry Belafonte and Toots Thielemans.

In 1989 he became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He often appeared as a soloist in Europe, the USA, Japan and Australia. Many composers wrote works for him and Lylloff himself was recognized as a composer.