Walfrid Kujala (February 19, 1925 – November 10, 2024) was an American flutist, piccolo player, teacher, and writer.
[2] In the Chicago Symphony, he played under four Music Directors: Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Georg Solti, and Daniel Barenboim.
Most surprising of the virtuosi was Walfrid Kujala, a tall man with a tiny instrument, who explained by playing one of them why Vivaldi wrote three concertos for the piccolo, or little flute.
[4] John von Rhein wrote, "If one responds most readily to the haunted, glissandi-rich slow movement and to Schuller`s witty finale for flute and piccolo, this is not to deny the effectiveness of the piece as a whole, or the virtuosity with which Kujala and Solti realized it.
"[5] Walfrid Kujala taught hundreds of students at Northwestern University from 1962 until 2012 and wrote dozens of articles for The Instrumentalist magazine, Flute Talk, and The Flutist Quarterly.