Corinne Flavin; cellist helped found Brown Bag Opera; 73
Corinne Haller Flavin was a cellist who performed with marquee classical musicians -- Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland among them -- but she was not above wading into a crowd of schoolchildren to share her unabashed joy in music.
"She was always ready to play," William Flavin said of his wife, 73, who died Friday in her Milton home.
Mrs. Flavin was a freelance musician who filled in at the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops and was principal cellist of the New England Chamber Orchestra. For years she was a member of the Brown Bag Opera, an ensemble dedicated to bringing classical music to nontraditional audiences, particularly children.
She was often called upon to perform at a moment's notice. Her husband recalled an incident several years ago, when New York City's Metropolitan Opera Company was in town. "One of their cellists got sick and one of them slipped and fell," he said. "They couldn't get anyone from the Boston Symphony because they were playing that night."
Mrs. Flavin got the call.
"Word of mouth, or more precisely, word of ear, preceded her," said her husband. "She sight-read the entire score of Il Travatore."
He recalled another instance, when she was called upon to perform Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" at the last minute, "and it was in Carnegie Hall."
Mrs. Flavin, who had performed under the direction of Stravinsky himself, was later asked to perform a particularly difficult Stravinsky piece with what Mr. Flavin described as a pick-up orchestra.
After she had woven seamlessly through a thorny passage, the first cellist turned around in her seat. "I noticed that you didn't have any trouble with this. How do you approach it?" she asked.
"Exactly the way Stravinsky showed me," Mrs. Flavin replied, according to her husband.
"That got her attention," said Mr. Flavin.
Mrs. Flavin's mother was also a cellist. Her father was a pianist. She was born in Astoria, Ore., where she began playing cello when she was 6.
When she was 16, her family moved to Salem, and she later studied at the New England Conservatory of Music.
She was a founding member of Brown Bag Opera, an ensemble created in 1982 to perform condensed versions of "La Traviata," "Hansel and Gretel," and other operas. They often used the productions to spark discussions of topics such as anger management, violence, and medical issues.
Mrs. Flavin often stepped into the audiences at Brown Bag performances to show schoolchildren how the strings on her cello vibrated, to show how she bowed the instrument to play high and low notes, and to demonstrate the difference between a cello and a guitar.
"She was effervescent," said her husband. "Her smile lit up a room."
Besides her husband, she leaves two sons, Neil H. of Walkern, England, and Scott T. of Miami; and four grandchildren.
Funeral services are private. 