Marcel Tabuteau was born at Compiègne the 2nd of July 1887.

His father, like five of [the father’s] six brothers was a horologist (clock & watchmaker); the sixth was a curate (village priest).  Like all the members of his family, he began very early on the violin, with his brother-in-law, Émile Létoffé.  At the age of eleven, he began on the oboe, and played in the city orchestra [band].  He thereafter studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he obtained the first prize at the age of sixteen.

He [then] left for the United States, where from 1905 to 19[08], he was a member of the New York Symphony Orchestra.  He had by then exchanged his violin for the oboe. Toscanini invited him to play solo oboe in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.  In 19[15], Stokowski invited him to Philadelphia, where he remained until 1954.

Marcel taught oboe at the Curtis Institute from 1924, where, over the course of thirty years, he trained all of the best American oboists.  He established a distinctive method for playing the oboe, and the name Marcel Tabuteau is still mentioned as [a notable] interpreter of the art of playing the oboe.  He also had a great influence on orchestral music[-making].  His influence is still felt in the art of utilizing the possibilities of the wind instruments [within the orchestra].  At one point seventeen of his students occupied the first oboe chairs in the U.S. and Canada.

In 1937, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor [by the French government].  Marcel Tabuteau retired to France, where he had purchased a property on the Côte d’Azur.  He died the 4th of January 1966.