Jean-Pierre Rampal
January 07, 1922 – May 20, 2000
Quick! Name a French flautist more famous than Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Marcel Moyse? Please.
René Le Roy? Nice try.
Georges Barrère? Maybe. But did Barrère ever guest star on The Muppet Show?
I didn’t think so.
Literally born to play the flute, Jean-Pierre Rampal was the son of Joseph Rampal, himself a famous French flautist who studied alongside the likes of Moyse and Le Roy. The younger Rampal started studying the instrument at the age of 12 and only went on to globally re-popularize its use as a classical solo instrument in the decades after World War II. Let’s see René and Marcel do that!
Rampal’s drive to make the flute cool again brought to light long-forgotten compositions for the instrument from Baroque masters like Vivaldi and Bach and launched an improbably popular career that lasted for the better part of six decades. He played straight-Classical gigs, of course. But, he also played with distinctly NON-Classical artists like sitarist Ravi Shankar. He recorded Japanese folk songs. And by the time he was playing alongside Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, he owned the only 18-karat gold flute in the world.
Jean-Pierre Rampal played publicly his entire life. In his 70s, he took to conducting as well. His last public performance was in 1999 at the age of 77. He died of heart failure the following spring.
Burial
Montparnasse Cemetery – Paris, FRANCE
Specific Location
Division 3; Between Allée Lenoir and the circular path that goes around the center of the cemetery.
Celebrity Graveland 
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