Updated at 3:32 p.m., Friday, December 29, 2006
Hawai'i Marine to play flute at Ford's state funeral
Advertiser Staff
Master Gunnery Sgt. Gail Gillespie of Wahiawa, a member of the The President's Own United States Marine Band, will play flute at former President Gerald R. Ford's state funeral, set for Tuesday at the Washington National Cathedral.The President's Own Marine band or the Marine Chamber Orchestra have performed state funerals of former Presidents Ronald Reagan in 2004, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973, Dwight Eisenhower in 1969, Herbert Hoover in 1964, John F. Kennedy in 1963, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945, and Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Ford, the 38th president died Dec. 26 at age 93.
Gillespie, who joined The President's Own band in 1979 and was appointed as principal flutist in 1983, began her musical instruction at age 11.
After graduating from Punahou School, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, earning a bachelor's degree with honors in performance in 1977. In 1978, She was awarded a fellowship in flute/piccolo at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Mass.
Her primary flute instructors have included Jean Harling of the Honolulu Symphony, Paula Robison of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, the late James Pappoutsakis of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the late Britton Johnson of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Toshiko Kohno of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
