Festival 2003 Artists Biographies

Artist Biographies

The Texas Flute Society is pleased to announce the names of these outstanding Guest Artists for the 30^th Annual 2007 Texas Flute Festival which will take place on the campus of the University of North Texas, Denton, TX.

Leone Buyse is the Mullen Professor of Flute at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. In 1993, she relinquished her position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra to pursue a more active teaching and solo career after 22 years as an orchestral musician. . Acting principal flutist of the BSO during her last three years in Boston, she was invited by Seiji Ozawa to join the orchestra in 1983 as assistant principal flutist and principal flutist of the Boston Pops. Previously she served as assistant principal flutist of the San Francisco Symphony and played solo piccolo and second flute with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ms. Buyse graduated with distinction from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a student of Joseph Mariano. Awarded a Fulbright grant, she subsequently studied in France with Michel Debost, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Marcel Moyse. Please visit her website to learn more about her recordings, her concerts and classes, and to hear her play: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lbuyse/

Fenwick Smith has enjoyed an unusually wide-ranging career. After twenty-four seasons, his annual recitals are a prominent feature of Boston’s concert calendar. A member of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1984, he has also performed on Baroque flute with Boston’s leading early-music ensembles, and was for thirteen years a member of the contemporary-music ensemble Boston Musica Viva. Second flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1978, Mr. Smith spent four of those years as acting assistant principal flute of the BSO and principal flute of the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Fenwick Smith and his long-time friend and colleague Leone Buyse founded the Greater Boston Flute Association 1992 to promote interest in and appreciation of the flute. Mr. Smith graduated in 1972 from the Eastman School of Music, where he was among the last students of the great American flutist Joseph Mariano. An inspiring teacher himself, Mr. Smith is on the faculties of the New England Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center. To learn more about Mr. Smith, his recordings, and to read articles on a variety of flute related topics, please visit his website: http://www.fenwicksmith.com/

Mimi Stillman has performed recitals at The Kennedy Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Italian Festival delle Nazioni, and other venues. She has appeared as soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra and orchestras throughout the United States and Mexico. She is a substitute flutist in The Philadelphia Orchestra.

At 12, Ms. Stillman was the youngest wind player ever admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner and received her Bachelor of Music degree in 1999. Mimi Stillman is a Yamaha Performing Artist and Clinician. Mimi has a new mini-site at Flutewise: http://www.flutewise.com/fw/mimi-index.html where you can find an archive of articles she wrote for Flutewise Magazine.

Elena Yarritu, winner of the 2006 Myrna Brown Artist Competition, is a former Bay Area resident and currently makes her home in New York where she is a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University studying with Ms. Carol Wincenc. Yarritu has performed extensively in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, and abroad in France, the Netherlands, and in Eastern Europe.

As a young musician, Yarritu was inspired by French flutist Isabelle Chapuis Starr at San Jose State University in California where she completed a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance. At Yale University, she continued her studies with acclaimed soloist, recording artist and conductor, Ransom Wilson. She then ventured off to Paris to study with the late Alain Marion. Her other mentors include Lloyd Gowen formerly of the San Francisco Symphony, Bart Feller of the New Jersey Symphony/New York City Opera, and Jill Felber of University of California at Santa Barbara. Ms. Yarritu has also participated in masterclasses all over Europe and the US and has played for the late Julius Baker and Ms. Jeanne Baxtresser. For a list of flute related links, a complete biography, and upcoming concert dates, please visit http://www.elenayarritu.com

Lisa Garner Santa, Artist-Performer and Associate Professor of Flute at Texas Tech University, principal flutist with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, teacher, recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. As an active member of the National Flute Association, Dr. Garner Santa has performed at the Boston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas and Nashville conventions. She has served as adjudicator and/or coordinator for the High School Soloist Competition, the NFA Newly Published Music Competition, the NFA Professional Flute Choir Competition and as NFA Convention Associate Program Chair.

Melissa Arthur, founder and director of Flutasia, has degrees in Music and German from Luther College and masters degrees in Flute Performance and Music Education from the University of Arizona. Ms. Arthur is an elementary music specialist in the Birdville Independent School District, maintains a private studio and is active as a freelance performer and clinician in the D/FW area. Ms. Arthur is the TFS Flute Choir Coordinator.