“A classical musician’s £50,000 golden flute has been stolen from a London bar hours after he performed at the Royal Festival Hall,” writes Lucy Clarke-Billings in Monday’s (12/14) Telegraph (U.K.). “Samuel Coles, a flautist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, was celebrating at the Archduke Wine Bar, on the South Bank, when a thief swiped the instrument along with a Louis Vuitton bag and a £10,000 wooden piccolo. Coles, 52, had been performing Schubert’s Ninth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, on the South Bank of the River Thames, just hours before…. Detectives investigating the theft on the evening of October 1 have released CCTV pictures of two men they want to question. They have also released pictures of the instruments, both designed by flutemakers Brannen-Cooper, in an attempt to trace them.” Said Coles, “It is terrible—absolutely awful. The flute was a major part of my musical life. It is very difficult to have to find another instrument. It is a hard adjustment to get used to a new one. That was my favourite flute—I built my whole career on it. It would be wonderful to get it back.”
Posted December 17, 2015
