Avanti Flutes - 2000 Model with C# Trill Shown

Avanti Flutes – designed by Bick Brannen

This flute has has been discontinued is no longer available.

Description

Avanti Flutes
Designed by Bick Brannen

Avanti flutes were made designed by master flute maker, Bickford (Bick) Brannen. Bick is known as one of the world’s finest flute makers for the handmade flutes that he pioneered at Brannen Brothers Flutes. The Avanti flutes was Bick giving back to the flute industry. These flutes were made by Conn-Selmer in Elkhart, Indiana.

Unfortunately, due to many various reasons, Conn-Selmer has discontinued the Avanti flutes. There is limited stock remaining and once they are all gone, they are gone forever.

Click here to read Dave Kessler’s blog post about these flutes.

Additional Information

Avanti Features
The Avanti line was designed by Bick with the desire of producing a true professional caliber flute, at an intermediate price point, in the USA. Dave & Chuck Kessler were actually present in some of the original design meetings for the Avanti line. Bick was truly passionate about this project and dedicated himself to the project… for free.

All of the flutes featured:

Professional Hand-Cut Solid Silver Headjoint, Designed by Bick Brannen
These headjoints were engraved “Avanti-Brannen”
Professional Cooper Scale
100% American Made
Professional Pads (see more below)
Investment Casted Keywork

The investment casted keywork was unheard of on flutes in this range. This is the same technique used on the professional Brannen Brothers flutes. This gave the Avanti flutes amazing feel, stability and quality.

Avanti Models
There were 2 models that were put in to production, though there were plans for other models had the line not been discontinued. The models that were made were:

1000 Series – Solid Silver Headjoint, Silver Plated Body
2000 Series – Solid Silver Headjoint, Barrel & Body with Silver Plated Keys, Gold Springs

All of these models featured the same basic design and features with the exception of the materials used.

Pad Histrory on the Avanti
A pad can make huge impact on the flute’s tonal performance, not just the functionality of the flute. For this reason, when the Avanti flutes were released, they came with a revolutionary new pad from professional flute & pad maker, David Straubinger. The new Straubinger “Phoenix” pad was designed to bridge the gap between the performance of the highest end pro pads and the durability of the traditional felt pads.

While the Phoenix pad was an amazing pad, it still required a more skilled flute technician in order to properly adjust and regulate. This created a problem as the heavy majority of flute technicians across the country are simply not trained to work on this level of refinement. As a result, this lead to stores handling the flute and not being able to adjust and regulate it which then hindered the player’s ability to even properly test the flute’s full performance – thus hindering sales.

Lucien Deluxe
Eventually, Conn-Selmer moved the Avanti flute over to the Lucien Deluxe pad; the industry’s highest caliber felt pad. This was done to try and help the issue mentioned above, but it did degrade a little from the flute’s performance. Unfortunately, this change was likely done a little too late as the flute was discontinued within a year of the switch.

Professional Setup
Like every flute, the Avanti flute needed a proper setup and proper regulation in order to reach it’s performance potential. The flute was at it’s best when it was setup right leading to an instrument that was powerful, expressive, rich and flat out amazing.

When we sold the flutes, every single one was gone over meticulously to ensure that they were perfect.

Closeout
If we have any remaining stock, they would be listed on this page and orderable in the drop-down. Once these items are all sold out, this page will remain simply for reference reasons. The Avanti flutes were absolutely amazing flutes and if you every get a chance to obtain one, do so. Once setup, they will blow you away.