12 Facts About Holger Gilbert-Jespersen

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was a Danish flutist, orchestral musician and academic flute teacher.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was a member of the Royal Danish Orchestra from 1927 to 1956 as well as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1927 to 1962, where he trained generations of flutists.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was born on 22 September 1890 in Ordrup, Denmark, the son of the physician Gilbert Lauri Jespersen and the artist Anne Marie Schack Bruun.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen studied the flute from 1908 to 1911 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

From 1913 to 1914, Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was in Paris, studying flute with Adolphe Hennebains, the principal flute of the Grand Opera in Paris, and was employed occasionally in the opera orchestra.

In 1917 Holger Gilbert-Jespersen started working as part of the Tivoli Concert Hall Orchestra and the Palace orchestra.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen soon returned to Paris to study flute with Philippe Gaubert, the conductor of the Grand Opera.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen's playing was characterized as delicate and light, inspired by the French style of his instructors.

From 1927 to 1956, Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was a member of the Royal Danish Orchestra, a soloist in the wind quintet from 1929, and played in the Danish Quartet from 1935.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was awarded the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1954, the Danish Gramophone Record Prize in 1955, the Cultural Foundation's Honorary Award in 1958, the Schytte's Honorary Award in 1960, and the Vera and Carl Johan Michaelsen's Honorary Award in 1960.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was married for the first time on 15 May 1922, to the milliner and textile designer Birte Elise Borgen Petersen, but they were divorced in 1927.

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen's third wife was a nurse, Katherine Marie "Misse" Richter, whom he married on 7 May 1948 in Copenhagen.