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As long as I can remember, I wanted to play the flute. I got to see my first flute when I was about four. My folks had a dog they wanted to sell. The people who answered their advertisement had a daughter who played in a band. They invited us to the outdoor summer concert and afterwards, the daughter showed us her flute and piccolo. I knew then that I wanted to play this beautiful, shiny instrument.
When I was in third grade, permission slips were handed out for renting instruments in school. I begged and begged for a flute. The only experience my parents had with music was singing in church and school choirs. They gave me a thousand reasons why they were not going to rent me a flute. Luckily, a few months later, the organist at our church got me a flute. He was a student at a local state school where he was a music education major. He also had a part-time job at a music store. He was able to borrow a flute from the store for me. All through grade school and high school, my main teachers were my band directors. I did play with a small community orchestra in junior high, had a few lessons with a saxophone player in seventh or eighth grade, and took a few lessons with a real flute player my senior year of high school, but was mainly self-taught until college. I was struggling to play some major pieces: Chaminade Concertino, Mozart D major concerto, Hindemith Sonata, Bach Sonata in e minor. I know now that I couldn't possibly figure out everything I needed to know to play this music successfully. When I got to college at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts, I had the opportunity to study with a very bright flutist and composer, Raphael Dannatt. He taught me more than how to play the flute, he taught me how music is put together. He also helped me learn to practice constructively.
In graduate school at the Manhattan School of Music, I had the opportunity to study with Harold Bennett who taught me how to practice technique and Thomas Nyfenger who gave me the keys to the kingdom. To this day, I think of many of the ideas Nyfenger shared with me, of the problems he helped me overcome and his incredible creativity and musical intuition.
In 1990, I went back to school again at the Manhattan School of Music, now as a
doctoral student. There, my teachers were Ransom Wilson and Linda Chesis.
Dr. Cate Hummel.
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Not
long after this experience, Leonard Bernstein started broadcasting his famous "Young
People's Concerts." He was so passionate about music. He really excited
me to want to be a part of making music and not just listening to music. The
principal flutist on these broadcasts in the New York Philharmonic at that time was Julius
Baker. His playing was so wonderful, I couldn't help but follow every note he
played. 
I took a couple years off of school after college and took private
lessons. I still had a lot of catching up to do because I had gotten started
After completing my Master of Music
degree, I took another five years to study privately and practice many hours a day.
I took lessons and played master
There
are many hoops to jump through in the doctoral program at MSM including three recitals, an
orchestral jury where I had to prepare 37 flute and piccolo excerpts, comprehensive exams
(to see if you know everything), and a dissertation. For my dissertation, I chose to
study Marcel Moyse's book, Tone Development Through Interpretation. I finished
everything in 199
Since 1992, I have been living and working in the Chicago area. Some of
the cool gigs I've gotten to play include a debut in New York at Weill Recital Hall at
Carnegie Hall in 1993 and a Dame Myra Hess concert in Chicago in 1995. I do lots of
teaching and play recitals five or six times a year.