Flute Day

ALL EVENTS ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

If interested in participating, please email
Dr. Michel at robmich@bgsu.edu.

We welcome all ages and abilities to participate! 

Activities include guest artist recital,
BGSU flute studio concert, masterclasses,
flute choir reading and technique classes.

Brooklyn-based flutist Roberta Michel is dedicated to the music of our time. She has commissioned and premiered hundreds of new works and has worked with many notable composers of our day. Roberta is the flutist and Co-Director of Wavefield Ensemble and is a member of Da Capo Chamber Players, PinkNoise, and Duo RoMi.

Roberta has also performed with: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cadillac Moon Ensemble (founding member), SEM Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ecce Ensemble, Portland String Quartet, Newspeak, Wet Ink Ensemble, Argento, Iktus, Wordless Music Orchestra, Ensemble LPR, and Cygnus Ensemble among others. Recent venues include: Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tulley Hall, Merkin Hall, The Kennedy Center, Roulette, Issue Project Room, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She can be heard on New Focus, Chandos, Innova, Tzadik, Bridge, Wide Hive, New Dynamic, and Meta Records. She played on the 2021 GRAMMY-winning album of Dame Ethyl Smyth’s The Prison with Experiential Orchestra. 

Her recently released solo album Hush, on New Focus Recordings, “digs deep into the possibilities of flute on this gripping solo recital” and was included on Bandcamp’s “Best Contemporary Classical: November 2024.”

Originally from Maine, Roberta attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and SUNY-Purchase College and has studied with Robert Dick, Tara O’Connor, Alexa Still, and Jean Rosenblum. She holds a doctorate in music performance from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is a winner of the NFA Graduate Research Competition for her dissertation on the flute music of Salvatore Sciarrino.

Roberta is the Assistant Teaching Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University and previously taught flute at Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, and music courses at St. Francis College. She plays a Brannen flute with a Mancke headjoint. 

robertamichel.com

Tara Helen O'Connor, who Art Mag has said "so embodies perfection on the flute that you'll forget she is human," is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and, as a member of the New Millennium Ensemble, a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she was the first flutist selected to participate in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Bowers Program and is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a member of the Windscape woodwind quintet and the Bach Aria Group.

O'Connor joined the prestigious faculty at the Yale School of Music in 2023 where she is professor of flute and coordinator of winds and brass. She is the Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival and is the Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series in Connecticut. A champion of contemporary music, Ms. O'Connor has premiered hundreds of works and has appeared on numerous recordings and film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, Highest To Lowest, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murder in the Building and Schmigadoon! to name only a few.

A charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era, O'Connor has collaborated with such distinguished artists as vocalists Jennifer Johnson Cano, Susanna Phillips and Dawn Upshaw, violinist Jaime Laredo, clarinetist David Shifrin, guitarists Jason Vieaux and  Eliot Fisk, and pianists Jeremy Denk, Peter Serkin, and Stephen Prutsman, and with such revered ensembles as the Emerson, Orion, and St. Lawrence string quartets.

Among the festivals at which O'Connor regularly appears include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, the Banff Centre, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, Orford Musique and Music From Angel Fire. 

O'Connor has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and PBS' Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She also serves on the faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music. Tara holds a DMA from Stony Brook University. She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.