What’s distinctive about my background and approaches? Here are a few good things to know about me:

I have an exceptional depth of knowledge as a professional educator. I hold a Ph.D. in Education from Saint Louis University and refined my approaches at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s “Arts and Passion-Driven Learning” seminar. I’ve taught for Saint Louis Irish Arts, Siamsa (Montréal’s School of Irish Arts), and children and teen programs with the Community Music School of Santa Cruz (California), the Boxwood Festival and Workshop (Nova Scotia, Canada), and the Scanian Folk Flute Festival (Landskrona, Sweden). I’ve been a clinician for the Flute Society of Saint Louis, published in Flute Talk magazine, and was a visiting guest artist for the flute studio at Truman State University. When I’m not teaching music, I teach education courses at the university level – which is how I’ve published in places like the International Journal of Music Education and the Routledge International Handbook of Arts and Education.

I’m an active performing artist. As an active freelancer in the Saint Louis area, I play for musicals and weddings. I am a regular in the Irish music scene and perform regularly at venues like The Focal Point, the Missouri River Irish Festival, Southern Illinois Irish Festival, and New Haven’s Fire Fest. As a Comhaltas-trained adjudicator, I’ve served as a judge for various fleadhanna (music competitions) in the Midwest. I’ve also contributed to multiple recording projects, including Duane Bridge’s Four Chorales for String Quartet and Louis Wall’s The Texas Room, an album Saint Louis Public Radio described as “break[ing] down barriers in language and musical tradition.”

I see possibilities for my students’ musical fulfillment in particularly expansive ways. As a classical flutist, I studied with Gladys Bouchet at the Conservatoire National de Rennes (France). I value the techniques I developed through this kind of study, especially as I’ve branched out into other forms of music. Today, I aim to help students identify what kinds of music they want to play and what they want to sound like. Our paths connect, but they can all lead in different directions – and that’s a good thing!

If you’d like, here are two samples of my playing – one on the wooden flute, the other on silver (yes, that’s me playing piano/synthesizer in the background too):

Ready to explore the possibility of taking lessons? Start the conversation here.