Blaine Ellis Edlefsen, 83, of Champaign died Sunday (Dec. 22, 2013) in Draper, Utah.

Blaine was born to Jesse and Ethel Edlefsen on Aug. 24, 1930, in Soda Springs, Idaho, and was raised in Driggs, Idaho. From an early age, he loved music and learned to sing from his mother. He played saxophone and clarinet in school bands.

While attending Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, he met Jean Josephine Harris and together they were married and sealed in the LDS Idaho Falls Temple on Aug. 29, 1952.

Blaine graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from BYU in 1952. In 1953, he completed his master of music degree in music literature and performance on the oboe from Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in upstate New York.

From 1953-1961, Blaine was an instructor of music at BYU and performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra in Salt Lake City, Utah. From 1959-61, he again attended the Eastman School of Music, earning his doctor of musical arts in performance and pedagogy of the oboe in 1966.

Blaine became an assistant professor at the University of Illinois School of Music at Urbana-Champaign in 1961, retiring as professor emeritus in 1994. During the summer of 1965, he held what is believed to have been the first oboe camp in the U.S. His video, “Making the American Scrape Oboe Reed,” made in 1969, was the first to illustrate the art of oboe reed making. He published methods of study for students learning the oboe at the beginning, intermediate and advanced-intermediate level. He was also a founding member of the International Double Reed Society.

RTWT