FEATURED GUEST ARTIST:
LINDA CHESIS

Described by the New York Times as “a marvelous artist, whose sophisticated technical resources and lively, informed musicality vitalize everything she plays”, Linda Chesis is considered to be one of the most exciting and dynamic flutists of her generation. Equally devoted to her roles as a chamber musician, teacher, soloist, curator and festival director, Ms. Chesis has forged a career of uncommon breadth and diversity.

Ms. Chesis has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in major halls worldwide.  A top prizewinner at the Paris and Barcelona International Competitions and at the National Flute Association Competition, she has received several career awards, including a Solo Recitalist’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Linda Chesis is the founder and artistic director of the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, about to celebrate its twenty fifth year of bringing chamber music performances of the highest quality to upstate New York. Ms. Chesis has also been a guest artist at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Salzburg Mozarteum, the Spoleto Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, among others.

Ms. Chesis has been on the flute and chamber music faculties at Manhattan School of Music since 1986 and chair of its Woodwind Department since 1988. She is regularly invited to give master classes at conservatories, universities and institutes around the globe.

Linda Chesis received a BA from Yale College with a major in the History of Art. Upon graduation she was awarded fellowships which allowed her to pursue flute studies with Jean-Pierre Rampal at the Paris Conservatory. After earning the conservatory’s coveted Premier Prix de Flute and performing for a season as principal flute of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Ms. Chesis returned to the U.S. to pursue a solo career.

Ms. Chesis’ recordings can be heard on the EMI, Nonesuch, and Music Masters labels, and television and radio broadcasts featuring Ms. Chesis’ chamber music performances can frequently be heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

Ms. Chesis is a William S. Haynes Artist and performs on a handmade custom Haynes flute that she discovered at Flutistry.

DR. MEGHAN BENNETT

Meghan Bennett is Music Assistant Professor of Flute and Director of Woodwind Studies at New York University. She was awarded top prizes in the South Carolina Flute Society Young Artist Competition, Morning, Afternoon and Eau Claire Music Club Competition, Atlanta Flute Club Young Artist Competition, Flute Society of Kentucky Young Artist Competition and Greater Philadelphia Flute Society Young Artist Competition. Bennett has also competed in the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition and the Fischoff Competition. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The University of Texas at Austin, Master of Music from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, and Bachelor of Music from the University of South Carolina. Her primary teachers include Marianne Gedigian, Marina Piccinini and Jennifer Parker-Harley.

Dr. Bennett has performed with The New York Pops, Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Waco Symphony Orchestra, Round Rock Symphony and the Palmetto Opera Orchestra. She was a guest soloist with Chamber Music International in Dallas, TX and has been a recipient of fellowships to attend the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Brevard Music Center, Marrowstone Music Festival, National Music Festival and Spoleto Festival USA.

Passionate about collaborating with communities of color through classical music, Bennett traveled to Chile and Ghana in 2019 for residencies at Centro Cultural San Antonio and the Matic Music Club where she taught flute, music theory and pedagogy classes. She curated Honesty of Voice, a five-part conversation series targeting a dynamic and diverse set of flutists who shared their professional journeys and insight into balancing life and the profession. As an artist mentor, Dr. Bennett embraces the opportunity to speak publicly about social issues. In 2020 she developed a four-part Facebook conversation series –– Let’s Talk–– amplifying the Black experience through the lens of classical music. The episodes gave in-depth analyses of Black experiences, explored systemic racism and generated steps for change.

Dr. Bennett was awarded a Creator Development Fund grant from New Music USA. She worked with Daniel Green, a creative director and audiovisual artist based in Charleston, SC in 2022 to record a set of works for flute and electronics. As part of Peabody Premiere Recordings, Bennett will record Fantasy by Lauren McCall at Peabody Conservatory in Spring 2024.

In her quest to expand the framework of classical study, Bennett curated a lecture-discussion — Fused: Pop Ideas + Classical Sounds. It is designed as a deep dive into the world of pop artists and their music, analyzing the ways in which popular music culture can influence our work as classical artists. This multi-dimensional fusion of verbal content, videos and performances focuses on an array of artists, including Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Drake and Céline Dion. Recent presentations include The Peabody Institute, Oberlin Conservatory, The University of Texas at Austin, Baylor University, University of Virginia Flute Forum and the New Jersey Flute Fair.

In Fall 2023 Bennett was Artist in Residence at the University of California, Davis and in July 2023 she began serving on the faculty of the YOLA National Festival of the LA Phil. Bennett previously served on the faculties of California State University - Fresno, Northern Kentucky University, Prairie View A&M University, and OrchKids.

Dr. Bennett is a William S. Haynes Artist and performs on a handmade custom Haynes flute that she discovered at Flutistry.

ANN BOBO

Bobo has been one of the busiest freelance flutists in Greater Boston for many years. She performs regularly with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the Springfield Symphony. She has performed with nearly all of the major organizations in the New England region, most notably the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Chamber Music Society, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Emmanuel Music, and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Bobo is an avid chamber musician and has been included on the rosters of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Celebrity Series of Boston, Winsor Music, Carolina Chamber Music Festival, and Radius Ensemble.

Originally from Long Island, New York, Bobo came to Boston to study with former Boston Symphony flutist Fenwick Smith at New England Conservatory. While in school, and for some years after, she was a member of the award-winning Taiyo Wind Quintet, an ensemble that earned awards from the prestigious Coleman and Carmel chamber music societies (1993), and she had the privilege of working with such renowned composers as György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, John Harbison, and John Heiss. She spent two years as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (1995, 1997) and toured throughout the United States and Asia with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. Bobo has performed numerous times on WGBH radio programs and has recorded for RCA Victor, Arsis, and New World Records.

In addition to Boston Conservatory, Bobo teaches at the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, Massachusetts, and maintains a private studio. When not performing (or practicing), Bobo can be found running around with her husband and two young daughters.

SARAH BRADY

Called “enchanting” by the Boston Globe, flutist Sarah Brady is sought after across the country as a soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher.  An avid promoter of new music she has premiered and recorded new music from many of today’s top composers. Her solo, chamber and over 50 orchestral recordings can be heard on the Albany, Naxos, Oxingale, Cantaloupe and BMOP/Sound music labels. As a leading interpreter of contemporary music, she was invited to read and record new music commissioned by Yo Yo Ma for his Silk Road Project at Tanglewood.

Principal flute with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera, Sarah often performs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and Boston Lyric Opera. As a chamber musician she has been described as “clairvoyantly sensitive” (New Music Connoisseur), and has collaborated with the Fromm Players at Harvard, the Firebird Ensemble, the Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva,  The Talea Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Sound Icon, NotaRiotous and the Cortona Collective.

In competition she was awarded second place in the National Flute Association 2006 Young Artist Competition, where she also won an award for the best performance of the newly commissioned work by Paul Drescher.  She has been a Semifinalist in the Myrna Brown Competition Flute Competition, Heida Herman Woodwind Competition, Eastern Connecticut Young Artist Competition, and twice received second place in Boston’s prestigious Pappoutsakis Flute Competition. As a soloist Sarah enjoyed a sold out debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with pianist Oxana Yablonskaya. Awarded a full tuition scholarship to the University of Connecticut, Sarah went on to receive a Masters of Music as well as an Artist Diploma from the Longy school of Music where she was a student of Robert Willoughby. Sarah is Associate Professor of Flute Association as well as the Director of the Classical Contemporary Music Program at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. For more information about recordings or concerts, please visit: www.Bradyflute.com

DR. SARAH SHIN

A native of Iowa, Dr. Sarah Shin made her concerto debut at age 16, playing Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra with the Central Iowa Symphony Orchestra and winning the Young Artist Competition. She then moved to Boston, MA to attend the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, where she performed in the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra under conductor Frederico Cortese.

Sarah is the Lecturer of Flute at Princeton University, a member of the Richardson Chamber Players, affiliated with Princeton University Concerts, and on the faculty at Rutgers University MGSA Community Arts as a flute instructor and chamber music coach. She has given master classes and workshops throughout the nation such as Carnegie Mellon University, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, University of Virginia Flute Forum, to name a few. Sarah also taught flute at the California Orchestra Academy and will be featured on tonebase in 2024.

Sarah can be heard on all streaming platforms with her solo Mozart Flute Concertos CD under Sony Classical with Conductor Christian Schulz and members of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra. Some of her performance highlights include performing with Lizzo at the 2023 Met Gala, performing a mini-tour with the Budapest MAV Symphony Orchestra in Konzerthaus Klagenfurt and Mozarteum Großer Saal in Salzburg, Austria, and performing with the Savaria Symphony Orchestra in Das MuTh Konzertsaal and Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. 

Sarah has performed in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston; Le Poisson Rouge, Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, The DiMenna Center, Le Poisson Rouge, and Alice Tully Hall in New York City; John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Gewandhaus Theatre in Leipzig, Germany; Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, South Korea, Konzerthaus Klagenfurt in Klagenfurt, Austria; Stiftung Mozarteum: Großer Saal in Salzburg, Austria; Musikverein: Golden Hall, MuTh Concert Hall and Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. She has performed in festivals and with ensembles and orchestras in France, Brazil, Mexico, and nationwide within the United States, such as Brevard Music Center, Colorado College Music Festival, and Round Top Festival Institute. She has also performed at conventions of the National Flute Association and the Flute Society of Washington, Inc.

In 2023, she was honored as a Trailblazing Woman of the Arts by the Martha Graham Dance Company. When attending her masters at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music, she was awarded an Artistic Excellence Award and the Barbara and David Jacobs Scholarship Fellowship, given to ten students out of the entire entering class. She has won First Place Prize at the Golden Classical Music International Competition, American Protégé International Competition, Upper Midwest Flute Association: Young Artist Competition, and the Rutgers University Honors Chamber Music Competition. She was a finalist for The American Prize Competition: Instrumental Professional Division and the Classics Alive Artists National Competition.

Along with being a soloist and educator, Sarah is an avid chamber musician and collaborator. She is a founding member of the Emissary Quartet, a flute quartet dedicated to new music. The Emissary Quartet won grants from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, NewMusic USA, Avaloch Farm Music Institute and Friends of Flute Foundation to promote new music through performance and education. They enjoy working with composers and creating projects such as a Call for Scores competition, which accumulated 190 submissions from over 5 continents. EQ has given presentations and taught educational workshops at University of Washington, the New Jersey Flute Society, the Suzuki Association of Utah, and the Utah Flute Association. They held residencies in Pittsburgh, Seattle, Iowa, to name a few. The Emissary Quartet was a quarterfinalist in the 2016 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. They also performed at the 2018 BMI Classical Music Awards Ceremony in New York City and the National Flute Association's 44th Convention in San Diego, California, and will perform at the 2021 National Flute Association Virtual Convention.

Sarah is President of the New Jersey Flute Society, the National Flute Association 2024 Convention Assistant Program Chair, and serves on two committees for the National Flute Association. With the New Jersey Flute Society, Sarah initiated the first Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity Committee, first Scholarship Fund, and the Flute For All! Outreach Educational Flute Program. During the beginning of the pandemic, Sarah and the New Jersey Flute Society created a Q&A series designed to help those in need called “NJFS Gives Back.” The Q&A Series interviews well-known musicians and all proceeds will go to a charity chosen by the artists or to a scholarship fund for a student to take flute lessons. A couple of charities whose proceeds were donated are God’s Love We Deliver, Children’s Defense Fund, the NAACP, and Girls for Gender Equity. 

Sarah attended Walnut Hill School for the Arts and is an honorary alum of the Young Artist Program at the Boston Flute Academy. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors in Flute Performance from Carnegie Mellon University School of Music and her Master of Music in Flute Performance from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is grateful for her teachers Jeanne Baxtresser, Alberto Almarza, Thomas Robertello, Bart Feller, Judy Grant, Dr. Sonja Giles, and Marianne Gedigian. 

Sarah is a William S. Haynes Artist and performs on a handmade custom Haynes 14k white gold flute.

Dr. Sarah Shin is a William S. Haynes Artist and performs on a handmade custom Haynes 14k white gold flute that she discovered at Flutistry. www.sarahshinflute.com

WENDY ROLFE

Flutist Wendy Rolfe performs with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, New York’s Concert Royal, The American Classical Orchestra, Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. and is Piccolist with the Cape Symphony. With pianist Deborah DeWolf Emery, she released "Images of Eve".. She has been guest artist at festivals in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Finland, China, and in the Caribbean.

Ms Rolfe was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Ecuador and Kenya, and toured the USA with a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ms Rolfe is Professor of Flute at Berklee College of Music. She earned the D.M.A. and M.M. from Manhattan School of Music with Harvey Sollberger, and the B.M. from Oberlin Conservatory with Robert Willoughby.

LINDA TOOTE

Toote has held principal flute positions with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Tampa, as well as the Santa Fe and Lake George Opera orchestras. Invitations from the Baltimore, Detroit, and St. Louis symphonies have included recent recordings and touring with these orchestras. Her recordings as principal flute include many symphonic works with the Atlanta Symphony on the Telarc label and works of many genres with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Boston Pops. Toote is a regular performer with the BSO and Boston Pops and has been the principal flutist of the Boston Lyric Opera Company since 1996. Other collaborations have included the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Collage New Music, the Boston Classical Orchestra, and the Boston Chamber Orchestra. In 2016, she will again be a performer and clinician at the National Flute Association convention in San Diego.

Toote has given master classes, clinics, and recitals across the United States and Canada, as well as in Taiwan and Germany. In 2009, she served as the program chair for the 37th Annual Convention of the National Flute Association (New York City), which saw a record-breaking attendance of more than 4,600 flutists. Her own convention appearances have included those in Dallas, Washington, D.C., Albuquerque, Chicago, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Anaheim, and Las Vegas. She has served as a board member of the National Flute Association.

During the summer months, Toote teaches at the Aria International Summer Academy in Mt. Holyoke, Massachusetts, and is director of the Boston University Tanglewood Flute Workshop.

Toote is a graduate of the Mannes School of Music, where she studied with John Wion. She was also a student of Thomas Nyfenger at Yale University.

KELLY WATSON WOELFFER

Kelly Watson Woelffer is a versatile flutist and composer based in Berlin and New York. She is the flutist and founder of Hear Now Berlin, a contemporary classical sextet at the forefront of the contemporary classical scene in Europe. Hear Now Berlin released their critically acclaimed debut album in 2023, Music in Circles (Backlash Music). The Guardian described the album as “an intriguing gem…from punchy and energetic…to shadowy sounds of the night… this is one of the most interesting chamber music albums I’ve heard recently.” 

As a composer/performer, Kelly finds herself most at home in music written by living composers, where genres are fluid and musicians are challenged to bring unique and personal contributions to the performance. As a bandleader, Kelly released two albums of original music: From the Shelf (CD Baby, 2006) and dear and bare (Phonector, 2008). Her piece, the (un)raveling can be found on Music in Circles.

Kelly regularly records for the studio orchestra, Deutsche Filmorchester Babelsberg and has been fortunate to perform and record with musicians from a wide variety of genres including Kurt Elling, Barry Manilow, Greg Osby, Reggie Workman, Becca Stevens, and Jacob Collier. 

Kelly has appeared as a Guest Soloist and Composer with the Mid-Texas Symphony and as a composer has received commissions from The New School for Music, Butch Morris’s Orchestra Slam, Aspenwood Music Company and the School for Improvised Music of New York.

Kelly won first prizes in the Leni Fe Bland Young Soloists Competition and was a winner in the National Flute Association’s College Masterclass Competition and NFA's High School Flute Choir Competition. She presented her debut recital at the age of 16 as a soloist and first prize winner of the South Texas Young Artists Competition.

Kelly served as Principal Flutist in the Experiential Orchestra in New York City and Principal Flutist of Butch Morris's Orchestra-Slam, a largely improvisational and cutting-edge orchestra. 

Kelly Watson Woelffer studied with Jim Walker at the University of Southern California and Göran Marcusson in Stockholm. Following a need to broaden her musicianship and artistry, Kelly attended the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC, where she studied composition and improvisation with Greg Osby. 

A devoted and passionate teacher, Kelly maintains a thriving private studio. Kelly has extensive Suzuki teacher training from both the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the European Suzuki Association and has been a guest teacher at Colorado Suzuki Institute, Boston Suzuki Flute Institute and the Suzuki Flutes by the Sea Workshop in London, England. www.kellywatsonwoelffer.com

Kelly Watson Woelffer performs on a handmade custom Haynes flute that she discovered at Flutistry.

ADAM WORKMAN

Raised in Vergennes, Vermont, flutist Adam Workman moved to Boston in 1998 to pursue his love of music. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Flute Performance from the Boston University College of Fine Arts where he studied with Marianne Gedigian, Jacques Zoon, and Linda Toote. He also received considerable guidance from Jonathan Landell, Court Gettel, Louis Moyse, Steven Finley, James Walker, and Paula Robison. Adam has appeared in orchestral, chamber, and solo performances throughout the country, and can be heard with the Boston-based Commonwealth Chamber Players and the Fensgate Chamber Players. His solo CD, “Tribute: Past, Present, Future” was released under the Azadmusico label.

Sought after as a teacher and coach, Adam has had students accepted at The Peabody Conservatory, The Yale University School of Music, The Longy School of Music, and The NYU School of Music. Formerly on faculty at the Boston Flute Academy, he has also coached the flutists of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and has taught masterclasses at Boston University College of Fine Arts, Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Georgia Athens, University of Missouri, University of Akron, Hartt School of Music, and The Kennedy School in Berlin, Germany, among others. Adam currently maintains a private studio at Flutistry Boston.

In addition to his artistic pursuits, Adam has held high-level roles at major companies in Boston including ViaCell, Inc, The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Biogen Idec, and was also Director of Classic and Amadeus Flutes at the Wm. S. Haynes Flute Company. With this unique background in both the creative and corporate worlds, Mr. Workman founded Muddy River Creative, an Arts Consulting firm, in 2004 (which later developed into Flutistry Boston). As such, he has made various contributions to the work of Marianne Gedigian, Paula Robison, Steven P. Finley, FluteFX, Charles Villarrubia, The Wm. S. Haynes Flute Company, Yesterday Service Music, The National Flute Association, The University of Texas at Austin, and SonyBMG Records. Adam has proudly served as a member of the Board of Directors for the James Pappoutsakis Memorial Flute Competition since 2007. 

Recognized for his repair skills by the Vermont Guild of Flute Making, Mr. Workman was trained in flute repair by master flutemakers Steven P. Finley (FluteFX and Wm. S. Haynes), Jonathan Landell, Muramatsu Flutes, Lillian Burkart, David and Joel Straubinger and is a Muramatsu & Straubinger Certified Repair Technician.

EILEEN YARRISON

Dr. Eileen Yarrison was the first flutist to receive a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Nebraska. (She also majored in German at University of New Hampshire and attended the Goethe-Institute in Blaubeuren, Germany.) Highlights of her teaching career include standing in for each of her teachers at her three collegiate alma maters while they went on sabbatical leaves, teaching and conducting at the Summer Youth Music School of UNH, and making a "standing-room only" pedagogical presentation at the 1996 National Flute Association convention.

Eileen has performed in the flute sections of the Omaha and Lincoln Symphony Orchestras of Nebraska, the Altoona Symphony, Centre Country Chamber Orchestra, and Music at Penn's Woods Festival Orchestras of Pennsylvania. When not performing, she teaches flute to students of all ages, holding positions at Gordon College and the Hamilton-Wenham Elementary Music program. Since 1997, Eileen has led this ensemble of professional and semi-professional flutists in several world premieres, two commissions, and three CD recording projects, including Points of View and A Falls House Christmas.

The Willow Flute Ensemble is a 10-member group of musicians, specializing in all flutes from the tiny, high piccolo down to the deep-toned bass flute. When all four types of the flute family are played together, the result is a rich sound like no other.

Willow specializes in music from cultures around the world, expanding the styles of music available to flutes. WFE performs European and American classical repertoire, both traditional and newly-composed. In the spring of 2024, we are pleased to be joined by Yao Tong, pianist, expanding our repertoire further into chamber music.

Whether it’s a seaside art gallery, a children’s concert, a library concert, or an invited performance at the National Flute Association Annual Convention, audiences rave about the variety of styles, the energy, the flexibility of sound, and just plain fun of listening to those unusual flute sounds.