I first met Stuart in December of 1986 in Hamburg. I had heard, that the reed players in the Cats production there were desperately looking for subs. Woodwind doubling was not really established in Germany back then. After my audition the MD Matthias Kosel introduced me to Stuart, who really needed a sub for a show on 20th of January. He gave me a copy of his book and a cassette tape to practice the part. We agreed that I should do my put-in on the 18th of January and I believe I was the last person to do this without any rehearsal at all. Since I studied classical clarinet and was not very experienced with the baritone saxophone or the flute I was frightened to death when the ouverture started. After the first page I grabbed my flute in panic, knowing that that was the next instrument I needed. Stuart, who was sitting next to me for the put-in tapped me on the shoulder, quietly handed me my clarinet and took my flute and placed it back on its stand – there were two more pages of clarinet before I had to make the change! It felt a lot safer after that, knowing that Stuart was there and would help me in case of any further emergencies. Luckily that calmed me down and Stuart could have me as his new sub. In the 10 years I worked at Cats Gertrud and I stayed with Stuart, Ellen and Sam (and earlier Charles) many times and we had a great time talking and drinking cold Pilsener Urquell beer. But it was the absolute highlight of any stay to enjoy Stuart’s specialty for breakfast – poched eggs. In 1996 Stuart was the guest soloist in the production of the 2nd CD (Fascinating Rhythm) of the Ensemble Clarinesque, my clarinet quartet. He played soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones as well as the clarinet in that recording and did a wonderful job. Up until today that one is still my favorite among our 5 CDs. Ellen and Sam came along to Fulda for one of the rehearsals for that CD. Unfortunately Sam had caught either the chickenpox or rubella just a day or before they came down to Fulda, so he and Ellen had to stay away from our house, because Gertrud was pregnant with our son Daniel at the time. I still have a very pleasant memory of our last visit in Hamburg after Daniel’s birth, which was shortly before Stuart, Ellen and Sam went back to the USA. Stuart had a trumpet, which he needed for his training as a wind instrument repair technician that he was to start soon in Redwing, Minnesota. Daniel was absolutely fascinated when Stuart played some notes on the instrument. In 2001 Stuart met our quartet in New Orleans. He came there to perform one of the pieces from that CD (Blue Rondo alla Turk by Dave Brubeck) with us at ClarinetFest. This is an annual clarinet conference hosted by the International Clarinet Association. The event took place at the Riverside Hilton and it seems, that almost anyone you would meet there during that week was either a clarinetist (there were about 1100 participants) or Avon sales ladies. Stuart didn’t fit in with that – he played baritone saxophone in our performance and we all laughed a lot at the puzzled faces of people who had asked him what was in that big case. I don’t know how often we heard the comment “but it’s a clarinet convention!” On our last day we wanted to have a nice dinner in the French Quarter. We had been a bit disappointed during the week, because we had all these romantic thoughts about New Orleans being the (or at least one) birthplace of Jazz. But most places didn’t seem to have live music at all and we heard mainly salsa music. That was not what we had expected. So, on that last day, walking down a street in the French Quarter, we saw two guys getting ready to play on guitar and harmonica. Curious what we would get to hear we stopped to listen. And that a big surprise we were in for: they started playing “Memory” from Cats. Stuart shouted “oh, no” – I think he just couldn’t bear hearing that song after so many years at Cats. Now, besides Stuart, Bettina, my wife Gertrud and I were there too – so that makes four of us who had played that show. The two poor fellows didn’t understand why we were laughing so much, and as a matter of fact I think they got kind of angry at us for that. Stuart was very special and being friends with him influenced me in many ways. Although he was a very serious and talented musician he was always humble and tolerant and his approach to all aspects of making music was very open minded. For me he was the very best example to follow and getting to know him was one of the best things that ever happened to me. We will miss him. Bruce Edwards