Biography
I am a classically trained flute player based in the greater Zürich area in Switzerland since December of 2016. I am fortunate to be able to focus on building a private flute studio here as well as to be working with Music Together Zürich. My job entails spreading the joy and love of music to families throughout Zürich, from toddlers in the creative and dynamic Music Together setting to my growing studio of private flute students of all ages.
As a teacher and musician I believe that one is never done learning and that it is never too late to try something new. I encourage my students to always ask themselves what it is about the flute and music that they enjoy and to always remember that, hold on it, and let it grow inside so that they can express it for themselves when they play their flute. My classical background has firmly established the importance of technique, music theory, and the more cerebral aspects of music; however, I believe that it is not only possible but also essential for us as musicians to combine this intellect with the emotion and passion that brought us to the music in the first place. The series of events that have led me to Zürich, Switzerland have not been straightforward. As a student I studied Flute Performance and minored in Philosophy at Concordia College, Moorhead before moving on to obtaining a Master’s Degree in Flute Performance at the University of Wyoming. My primary teachers spanned from my high school band director Paul Melby, to my first flute teacher Deb Harris at Concordia, and finally to Dr. Nicole Riner in Wyoming. Under the guidance of these musicians I fell in love with the flute, I explored different musical styles, and was able to take masterclasses with inspiring and accomplished musicians like William Bennett in Minnesota, Gerard Schwarz in Wyoming, and most recently Jasmine Choi in Bangkok, Thailand. But after finishing my Master’s degree in 2014 I was not ready to move somewhere new and settle down. I wanted to explore what the world had to offer and learn more about myself as a person. With this wandering spirit winning a war in my mind I went back to school for my TEFL/TESOL certification and boarded a one-way flight to Busan, South Korea where I spent a year teaching English classes at a small music-focused elementary school on the outskirts of the city. While there I found myself treating music as my passion but not as my career and as each day passed I was reminded that something was missing in my life, the music. During my time living in South Korea I was also able to travel to India and Thailand, I met exciting new people from all over the world and learned more about myself than I had ever imagined, and yet I began to crave the lifestyle I had originally abandoned. As a musician it is not easy to uproot and move from one location to another, we lose our contacts and our students, and often find ourselves toiling for months to reach the baseline that we had left behind. It took a whirlwind of a year traveling between South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, the U.S.A. and back again before I found myself here in Switzerland. With the complexity of this new culture, new country, and multiple new languages, I find myself finally working in the career of my choice: spreading the love of music, learning, and creativity to people and families around me. I cannot imagine a more fulfilling and exciting challenge than finding new students, new musical colleagues, and spreading the joy of music to those that I meet. |