Summer Happenings

Welcome to my new blog! I am a flute player currently living in Normal, Illinois. I'm attending Illinois State University as a graduate student studying with Dr. Kim Risinger. I am lucky to get to be her teaching assistant and to basically live a life full of music and flute! Besides my music, I have been married for almost a year and am enjoying life with my husband!

As a flutist I love to perform and love to teach just as much. I plan to open my own studio in the future and look forward to a life of sharing music with others.

My first year of graduate school ended in May. It was a great year but also a year of adjustments. As an undergraduate I studied Music Education and it was a very different lifestyle than performance in some ways. This year I've had so much more time to spend on my flute and teaching it as well. I've learned so much about my playing and have made progress in gaining confidence as a performer. I've had the opportunity to teach and lead collegiate students and ensembles. It's been very rewarding and a continual learning experience.

Though Normal is not always the most exciting place to be in the summer, a couple really exciting things have happened so far. Firstly I was brought on as a flute teacher at the Music Shoppe here in town. I'll be starting with a piano student there next week and am hoping to get flute students soon. I've been hard at work making some fliers and business cards to put up there. I can't wait for the new teaching opportunities I'll have!

And last week my husband and I drove up to Flute World in Farmington, Michigan so I could find a piccolo. I've been wanting my own piccolo for quite some time now and now it is finally happening. Luckily I knew Burkhart-Phelan was the brand I wanted so the task was narrowing it down to a head-joint. After a morning of trying various standard, clarion, wave, and modified-wave head-joints, I decided on the modified-wave. Then it was narrowing it down between three modified-waves. That was the really difficult part. It was basically like choosing between three different cars, all of the same make and model. Finally I was able to choose one! I've been playing it for about a week now and will make my final decision today or tomorrow. More about the piccolo to come!

And that's it for the first post! More updates to come!


Currently Listening to: Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik (Wind Quintet)
Shostakovich's Symphony 5