Music Is Your Music

I got my M.M. in performance from Yale School of Music, 2002, after studying with a great, kind teacher, Ransom Wilson. I got to learn directly from other great teachers and peers as a participant in The Julius Baker Masterclasses and Domaine Forget. After my Yale graduation I finally felt my path was clearly to be a flutist. It really was only then, even after my early experiences like playing in the New York Youth Symphony, winning Westchester Conservatory’s concerto competition, winning the Hudson Valley Music Club competition, admission to Honor Band of America a couple of times. Then, after Yale, life happened! And I concertized and taught and published a theory text and began to compose and was turned into a teacher for some very special students, perhaps including you.

What is a special person? Unique and of great worth; so, you, and everyone. I want my students to blossom into their full potential, for the right reason: as a gift. I mean, Music is a gift, right? So that in our first lessons, tone warm-ups always include experiencing the sound as a gift.

Music is a language, and the Western canon is great, and so are Celtic and Cuban and Carnatic and everything else, but what's going to come through you? You have to learn the language, by ear, the basics. Do, Re, Mi, what they mean, how they function. And what they say to you in the morning on Tuesday, which may be different from what they say in the afternoon. Learn the old great repertoire; write your own, maybe. Hear it your own way, anyway. Languages are always evolving, you know. Music is your music.