Presenter Biographies

Chris Norman

Hailed as one of the finest flute players of our time, Chris Norman proves over and over again that the simple wooden flute is the original- and still unsurpassed- woodwind of expression, passion, joy and subtlety. His influential work as a performer, composer, recording artist and teacher has brought the simple wooden flute to the forefront as an alternative voice to the modern orchestral instrument.  

Born in Halifax Nova Scotia, he began his musical studies at the age of ten. His interest in the traditional music of Maritime Canada; Scottish, Irish and French Canadian Styles, drew him from his early path studying classical flute. Chris embarked upon a quest to learn the music from the tradition bearers, travelling across North America and Europe. His subsequent work has redefined the boundaries of both traditional and classical styles, forging a synthesis that has been embraced by audiences, scholars, and critics of both schools. 

His busy performing schedule includes solo engagements and concerts with a variety of ensembles, appearing frequently as soloist with orchestra and touring with his own Chris Norman Ensemble. In years past Chris has also appeared worldwide as a member of the international folk trio, Helicon, and the all-star Celtic fusion group, Skyedance, and the acclaimed early music group, The Baltimore Consort and across Europe with Concerto Caledonia.  

Norman’s flute playing can be heard featured in the Oscar winning soundtrack of Titanic as well as other films including Stone of Destiny and Soldier. His solo CD releases have received unanimous praise from critics and audiences alike. His debut Man With the Wooden Flute made the Billboard crossover charts for 12 weeks. Since that time Norman has collaborated, toured and recorded with some of today's most seminal artists in the genres of early music and traditional folk music. 

As a composer Chris is the recipient of numerous grants and commissions. Recent works include Out of Orkney, a tone poem for flute, harp, and string orchestra, and The Sunshine of St. Eulalie commisioned by the Ohio State University Flute Choir. His compositions been featured on National Public Radio, the CBC in Canada and the BBC, as well as concert halls in Europe, North America Australia and New Zealand. 

Chris regularly teaches master classes and has conducted symposia at many schools of music around the world. He has inspired thousands of musicians both young and old as the founder and director of the Boxwood Festivals and Workshops. Boxwood has established a worldwide presence celebrating and sharing the music and traditions of the flute, inviting a multicultural and multi-disciplinary dialogue between performers, teachers, scholars, students, and makers of the flute through annual week-long festivals taking place in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and Rotorua, New Zealand. In each case, Boxwood's participants join with members of the local community for music, concerts, dances, classes, and informal sessions creating a tightly woven bond for an experience to be treasured. Under Norman's guidance Boxwood has followed the paths of musical oral tradition in Scotland, Ireland, Cape Breton, Quebec, and New England, as well as exploring music of Breton, Galician, Cuban Charanga, Native American and classical Indian styles by inviting tradition bearers, top players and musical visionaries to share their music. In short, Boxwood aims to present ideas that encourage musicians to leave the printed page and find their own voice. 

Robin Fellows is Professor of Music at The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where he performs in the Whitewater Wind Quintet and is director of the Whitewater Flute Camp. He is the principal flutist of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, second flute and piccoloist of The Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, principal flutist of the Bel Canto Chamber Orchestra and Chorus (Milwaukee) and each summer is principal flutist of The Woodstock Mozart Festival Orchestra. Dr. Fellows has also performed with the Madison, Knoxville and Nashville Symphony Orchestras. He has performed concertos as a soloist with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Woodstock Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Knoxville Chamber Orchestra and the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. Dr. Fellows has taught at Tennessee Technological University, Northwestern University and Connecticut College. Dr. Fellows has performed at six National Flute Association Conventions, has judged many N. F. A. Competitions and has participated and chaired several panels at N. F. A. Conventions. He has presented recitals and master classes at the University of Arkansas, Northwestern University, De Paul University, Miami University, Eastern Michigan University, Western Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Fellows holds an M.M. degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a D.M. degree from Northwestern University. His teachers include Walfrid Kujala, Maurice Sharp and Joseph Mariano. He has published articles in The Flutist Quarterly and Flute Talk and has recorded for Marc Records and Audio for the Arts. His recently released CD entitled "20th Century Music for Flute" is on the Stoic label and received an excellent review in Flute Talk magazine. 

Patricia George is the flute professor at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival (The University of the South) and the American Band College (University of Southern Oregon).   Previously she has served on the faculties of the Eastman School of Music Preparatory Department, Brigham Young University - Idaho and Idaho State University where in 1996 she was awarded the Faculty Achievement Award. She is a Contributing Editor of Flute Talk magazine and writes the monthly column "The Teacher's Studio."  She has also written for the Idaho Music Educator's Notes, the National Flute Association's Flutist Quarterly, Keynotes Magazine, and Chamber Music America. 

     Ms. George has presented her participatory flute masterclass "FLUTE SPA" for over one hundred flute clubs and universities throughout the United States.  She presents regularly at the National Flute Association conventions (Dallas, Las Vegas, Nashville, Albuquerque, and Kansas City), Western International Band Clinic and at Midwest Music Clinic.  She has presented her Flute Week masterclass workshop most summers since 1970. 

     As a performer she has toured the United States, Europe, Russia and the Middle East.  Her performances have been heard on National Public Radio affiliates in Tennessee, Idaho and Utah.  With Trio Terra Nova, she has appeared at the International Double Reed Conventions held in Arizona, Wisconsin and at the Centre for the Arts in Banff, Canada, in addition to regularly scheduled performances at Temple Square Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City, UT, Brigham Young University - Provo; Brigham Young University - Idaho; and throughout the Intermountain West. 

She has soloed with the Amarillo Symphony, Eastman-Rochester Symphony, Quincy Symphony, Brigham Young University - Idaho Symphony Orchestra, the Magic Valley Symphony, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Elkhorn Music Festival Orchestra, the Sewanee Summer Music Festival and Philharmonia Orchestras, the Idaho Symphony and the Idaho State Civic Symphony. 

     Patricia George has served the 6,000 member National Flute Association as a member of the Long Range Planning Committee and as Secretary of the Board of Directors. She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of Directors, the Review Board of the "Flutist Quarterly," and a Moderator of the newly created FORUM.

She earned the Bachelor of Music degree (with distinction) in Applied Flute, the Master of Music degree in Performance and Musical Practice and the Performer's Certificate in Flute from the Eastman School of the University of Rochester.  Her teachers included the legendary American flutists Joseph Mariano (Eastman School of Music and the Rochester Philharmonic), William Kincaid (Philadelphia Orchestra), Julius Baker (New York Philharmonic) and Frances Blaisdell.

     She performs on sterling silver Verne Q. Powell flutes, one made in 1964 and the other in 1997.  The results of her experiments into the acoustics of the flute, particularly those relating to the crown, are now being used by many flute manufacturers.  She is a clinician for Conn-Selmer, Inc and is a Verne Q. Powell Artist.  

     Patricia George is married to American composer Thom Ritter George and is the mother of three musical children.    

Ellen Huntington is second flute with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, regularly performs with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and has also performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A frequent recitalist, she has been a featured artist at the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, the University of Chicago, and the National Flute Association Convention in New York City. She is a winner of the Northwestern University Concerto Competition and the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Award. Ms. Huntington is on the faculty of North Park University and maintains a large teaching studio in the Chicago suburbs. Her summer teaching appointments include the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Flute Camp and the Annual Summer Flute Retreat at Illinois Valley Community College. As the recipient of a Fulbright Grant, Ellen Huntington studied with Jean-Claude Gérard at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany. Ms. Huntington received her Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University where she studied with Walfrid Kujala and Richard Graef.  She was awarded a University Fellowship to pursue her Master of Music degree with Katherine Borst Jones at The Ohio State University.  She recently completed her Doctor of Music degree at Northwestern University with the dissertation, “The Flute and Harp Duo in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.”  

René  Izquierdo has been awarded several competition prizes, and most recently was a finalist in the JoAnne Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition. He has appeared as a guest soloist and in chamber music concerts throughout the United States, Canada, Cuba, Spain, France and Italy. He has shared the stage with many prestigious guitarists including Eliot Fisk, Jorge Morel and Benjamin Verdery as well as renowned flutist Ransom Wilson at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. At the Only in America Cameo Concerts Series, Izquierdo performed music by composer Bruce Adolphe, in collaboration with David Jolley and Lucy Shelton. Renowned composers such as Jorge Morel and Carlos R. Rivera have dedicated works to him. In 2004 he performed the Villa-Lobos concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and played the U.S. premiere of "The Divan of Moses Ibn-Ezra" by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a 19-song cycle, with soprano Arianne Slack in a Merkin Archive concert. Before joining the faculty at UWM, Izquierdo taught at the State University of New York at Purchase and Yale University. 

Victoria Jicha is the editor of Flute Talk, has taught at DePaul University and Wheaton College, and freelanced on flute and keyboards throughout the Chicago area. She is a former Chicago Flute Club president, NFA secretary, and Flutist Quarterly advertising editor. Her bachelor’s in flute performance is from Indiana University, and her master’s is from Northwestern. Her flute teachers include Robert Willoughby and James Pellerite. She is also a Master Hand Knitter. 

Tim Lane has played with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfonica de Veracruz, and the Ohio Chamber Orchestra. He has been a soloist and chamber music participant with the Roundtop Music Festival (Roundtop, Texas), the Arcady Music Festival (Bar Harbor, Maine), and with the San Antonio Chamber Players. He is currently a member of the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), Wisconsin Woodwind Quintet and a guest performer with Les Favorites, a period instrument ensemble. Dr. Lane is an active recitalist and has recorded a solo CD for Zuma Records Inc., "Shards of Glass, Romantic Twentieth Century Flute Music." He has also recorded music for Centaur and Tel Arc. His teachers have included Maurice Sharp, Alexander Murray, and William Bennett. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana and wrote his dissertation on "The Relation Between Analysis and Performance of W.A. Mozart’s D Major Flute Concerto in Accordance with Conterporaneous Writings." Dr. Lane was a National Flute Association Convention performer competition winner in 1996. 

Lillian Lau is in demand as an orchestral musician, teacher, solo harpist and chamber music recitalist in Chicago and the Midwest.  Her extensive orchestral engagements include performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theater, Ravinia Festival, Elgin Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, National Repertory Orchestra, at major concert halls throughout Europe as a Principal Harpist, and at the World Harp Congress in Switzerland.  Lillian has participated in critically acclaimed performances with such artists as Placido Domingo, Samuel Ramey and Leon Fleisher.  She is currently the Principal Harpist of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra.  Lillian Lau is involved in the harp community as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Harp Society and past co-chair of the American Harp Society Institute and National Competitions in Chicago.  She is the assistant editor of Sarah Bullen's orchestral excerpt guide, Principal Harp Book 2.  Lillian Lau holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, as well as the prestigious Performer's Certificate from Indiana University and a Professional Diploma in Orchestral Studies from the Chicago College of Performing Arts.  Her principal teachers are Sarah Bullen, Principal Harpist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Distinguished Professor Susann McDonald of Indiana University.  

Linda Pereksta, Assistant Professor of Flute at The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, is Chair of the NFA’s Historical Flutes Committee, and the Editor of TRAVERSO.  She was a member of the Louisiana Philharmonic, Arkansas Symphony and Memphis Symphony Orchestras, and a two-time prizewinner in the NFA’s Baroque Flute Artist Competition.  She holds degrees from The University of Iowa, The Peabody Conservatory and Florida State University, and her flute teachers have included Betty Bang Mather, Charles DeLaney, Leone Buyse, Christopher Krueger and Robert Willoughby. 

Caen Thomason-Redus is the Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and enjoys traveling the world performing and teaching.  Solo appearances in recent years include the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the National Flute Association Convention, the Sheboygan Symphony and UWM’s major ensembles.  Recital programs vary greatly and include everything from virtuosic baroque sonatas to contemporary African American music for solo flute.  At UWM, Caen is particularly active in chamber music through the faculty artist series Chamber Music Milwaukee and his own series of recitals.  You can hear him on The Flute Collection and the Moyse Collection of Flute Classics, two sets of recordings and anthologies published by Schirmer.  Prior to arriving in Milwaukee, Caen spent two years performing with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as their Minority Fellow and now performs often with professional orchestras such as the St. Louis, Milwaukee and Kansas City symphonies.  Caen began playing Muramatsu flutes in 2003 and is a Muramatsu Artist.