My flute playing history:
I started playing flute in Arvika, Sweden at age 11, encouraged by a family friend Staffan Tunstrom, who was also the church organist in our town. I had already played recorder for a couple of years, and now switched to flute lessons at the local community music school. In 1979 we moved to Walnut Creek, California, where I continued playing in junior high school and high school bands. I was not very skilled then, by any means, and in a large group of flutists. In High School I ended up playing piccolo, mostly, in the marching band. An easier instrument to keep warm during those cold football-game nights. Sometime during my second year in high school I started taking flute lessons with Pamela Ravenelle, and made a lot of progress on a diet of Handel, Telemann, Mozart, Taffanel & Gaubert excercises, plus Moyse's "De la Sonorite". I continued with her, commuting to Daly City for lessons, then with Ken Cramer, taking the train in for lessons at Forrest's Music in Berkeley. By my senior year in high school I had improved a lot, was playing in the symphonic band (the better group) and performed the Griffes "Poem" at the end of year concert. The year 1984 found me graduated from high school and recruited to the music department at San Francisco State University, where I had lessons with Paul Renzi -- then principal flutist of the San Francisco Symphony -- and played in the symphonic band and orchestra. I wasn't happy there however, and in my second year I took some lessons with Ken Cramer on the sly, in order to prepare for the audition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I knew then that I wanted to be a performance major, not a public school music educator. The conservatory accepted me.
At S.F. Conservatory, starting 1986, I studied with Lloyd Gowen, until he retired a year and a half later, at which point I continued with Tim Day, who had just arrived there from Baltimore. I liked Lloyd a lot, and made good progress with him. (He also introduced me to the board game "Go", for which I am ever so grateful!) With Tim I felt like things really took off, though. He has got to be one of the most inspiring, positive flute teachers ever! At the same time, I also got exposed to the sounds of the baroque flute via my chamber music teacher Stephen Schultz, fell in love with that instrument, aquired one and started practicing it. My recitals from then on got heavily baroque-weighted, as I loved that music, especially the french repertoire (on baroque flute) at least as much as the modern flute repertoire, if not more. (though I have a very soft spot for the Prokofieff sonata and the Nielsen concerto, to name a couple). Sometime toward the last years at Conservatory, I ran into Shelley Phillips, oboist and folk harpist, who introduced me to the Irish folk repertoire and the playing of Matt Molloy. I started learning tunes. I graduated with a bachelors in music in 1989, and went from there to study baroque flute at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, with the amazing Wilbert Hazelzet (just listen to his recordings, he is a unique player!). The europe experience was great; there is just sooo much great music and musicianship going on over there. To compare, especially in the early music field, the US west coast feels like the provincial boonies.
In 1992 I move back to the states, after a fruitless year in Sweden, frustrated at not making any headway into the professional scene there. I ended up in Santa Cruz with my friends Shelley and Barry Phillips, and guitarist William Coulter who had also settled there.
Slowly I started getting gigs on both modern and early flutes, though the main focus and interest was still in the early music field. The modern symphony gig wasn't really where my interest lay, though I'd certainly say yes to such work whenever it made itself available (I did have some sub'ing gigs with the Santa Cruz Symphony - fun!). I like variety! One interesting local gig that appeared was the Bay Shore Lyric Opera, which I auditioned for and won a second flute position with. This was great fun, playing with Teresa Orozco, and getting to play many of the opera classics. Among the highlights were doing a Madame Butterfly, directed by "the" Licia Albaneze ("You're kidding?!" No really, it was her.. these folks had connections.) Sadly that company folded a few years after the dot-com crash, due to funding problems. For 2 years I was manager of the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and learned that arts admin wasn't what I wanted to be doing.. especially if I'm playing in the concerts I'm managing; that was hard. Other gigs during this time included a good number of Bach St. John passions, B-minor masses and St. Matthew passions, with the Warren Stewart's period-instrument group "Magnificat" (now "Jubilate!"), hired by various bay area choirs. Good, fun work with a lot of nice people and good musicians. In 1999, my wife and I have twin boys, and I end up dayjobbing in the IT industry for our living. I still kept gigging, (though the Sonoma gigs got to be too far away) but a couple years into that I gave up my teaching studio in favor of full-time employment.
The whole computer/IT thing turned out to be quite a ride; I went from on-phone tech support to being a unix sysadmin in a couple of years. When that company got shut down, I was able to immediately pick up another sysadmin position with another ISP in town. However, after 4 years there I was feeling increasingly stuck, and unhappy with the employment situation; wondering how I could make that sort of money doing the things I love to do instead. This all reached a head summer 2006; I had just turned 40 and took a week off to go to flute-camp (boxwoood.org) in Nova Scotia. 7 days of just playing folk flute and going to classes.. I returned with a strong motivation to do something about my career.
At present (summer 2007) I have reversed my career situation out of full-time IT and back into mostly music. I am now teaching private lessons again, teaching private school band instruments and recorder, as well as working on expanding on my other music activities. I am playing better, as I have time for morning practice again. Aside from the local Santa Cruz gigs, some of my coveted early-music goals are happening.. I've had work a couple of times now with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (for me, THE group to play with) and also recently soloed with Portland Baroque Orchestra. On modern flute, I'm currently first call principal flute with the Ensemble Monterey Chamber Orchestra -- very fun work, as this group does really interesting repertoire -- and perform in a variety of other chamber music and small orchestra situations.
Last updated June 13, 2007