Ticketed Meal Events

Tony's Story: Learning and Performing the Native American Flute

We invite you to attend the Flute Lover's Lunch on Friday, August 4 at 11:30 a.m. At this ticketed event, six-time World Hoop Dance Champion and flutist Tony Duncan will perform and speak about his experience learning the Native American flute. Tony Duncan (Apache-Arikara & Hidatsa) has performed the Native American flute and the hoop dance for audiences worldwide including at the White House, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Smithsonian Museum, Musical Instrument Museum, Billboard Music Awards, The Tonight Show, and an NBA All-Star game.

Duncan has toured internationally with pop star Nelly Furtado as featured dancer onstage and in the music video for her hit, “Big Hoops.” He has appeared as a flutist and dancer before an estimated total audience of 100,000 people in such diverse locations as Paris, London, Tokyo, Manila, Switzerland, Italy, and Malta. He has performed with fellow Native American artists R. Carlos Nakai and Joanne Shenandoah. Tony Duncan Biography. 

Friday, August 4, 2023, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., $50 per person

Tickets may be purchased in advance by contacting Mily Harrod, Membership Manager, at mharrod@nfaonline.org, or onsite until noon on Thursday, August 3.

Coloring Outside the Lines: An Unconventional Path to Destiny

We invite you to attend the ticketed breakfast event - Food for the Day's Journey. This Pedagogy Committee-sponsored event will take place on Saturday, August 5 at 8 a.m. and will feature award-winning flutist, composer, and educator Kim Scott. During the program, Scott will speak about her training as a classical flutist and how flute teachers in her life empowered her to tap into a part of her creativity she never knew existed. Had she not been encouraged to "color outside the lines", she never could have envisioned taking such an unconventional path that led to worldwide recognition and acceptance of her playing and music.

Kim Scott has numerous #1 Billboard hits on the Innervision Records Label. She’s a nationally syndicated jazz radio host, a Miyazawa Performing Artist, an administrator at a Fine Arts School in Alabama, and she composed and performed “SHINE!”, which was named Billboard’s #1 Smooth Jazz Song of the Year in 2022. Read Kim Scott's full bio here.

Saturday, August 5, 2023, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m., $40 per person

Tickets may be purchased in advance by contacting Mily Harrod, Membership Manager, at mharrod@nfaonline.org, or on-site until noon on Friday, August 4.

Patricia George

Lifetime Achievement Award

Patricia George is a performer, professor, co-author, and writer. Her Flute Talk column, “The Teacher’s Studio,” was often the first thing a reader turned to because they would inevitably discover a tidbit or concept that could be immediately incorporated into their teaching or practice. A former student shares, “Not everyone who is a great performer has the ability to pass on their ideas in such simple ways. Not everyone can hand someone ‘a bag of tricks’ that will enable them to become a better musician and performer. I will never forget all of the catch phrases of strong-weak, syncopation equals separation, loop or less, dots equal silence, and many others.”

After attending the Texas Tech University band camp as a 10-year-old, George was largely self-taught until she studied with Frances Blaisdell at the National Music Camp. Blaisdell guided her in building a strong foundation based on the concepts of Georges Barrère and William Kincaid. At the Eastman School of Music (BM, MM, Performer’s Certificate in Flute) George continued her studies with Joseph Mariano, who encouraged summer study with William Kincaid and Julius Baker. While at Eastman, she was selected to join the Eastman Philharmonia for a three-and-a-half-month tour of Europe, the Middle East, Poland, and Russia. Working with conductors Howard Hanson and Frederick Fennell influenced her musical ideas. 

Read Patricia George's full bio here

Read the Flutist Quarterly tribute to Patricia George here. 

Keith Underwood

Lifetime Achievement Award

Keith Underwood is considered one of the foremost flute pedagogues of his generation, as well as an expert on breathing techniques as it relates to wind players. He resides in Yonkers, New York, and is on the faculties of New York University’s Steinhardt School, The New School – Mannes School of Music, and Queens College, the Aaron Copland School of Music. He also teaches online.

Born in 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut, his father Kenneth was a professor at Wesleyan University and Yale Divinity School, a brilliant social scientist, and in the 1960s became advisor to President Kennedy. His mother Marjorie was assistant to the dean at Yale.

As a performer he has played with organizations including the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and Parnassus (with which he gave the American premiere of Elliott Carter’s solo flute piece Scrivo in Vento), and he is also principal flute of the Orchestra of New England. He has recorded with such diverse artists as Benjamin Verdery, Celine Dion, Kathleen Battle, Rod Stewart, Bobby McFerrin, and Anthony Newman. He can be heard playing the flute cadenza in the 1983 production of The Pirates of Penzance with Linda Ronstadt.

Read Keith Underwood's full bio here. 

Read the Flutist Quarterly tribute to Keith Underwood here

Jonathan Keeble

Distinguished Service Award

Professor of Flute at the University of Illinois and Past NFA President, Jonathan Keeble enjoys a robust career as performer, pedagogue, and clinician. He is the flutist for the award-winning Prairie Winds and Aletheia Duo and principal flute of Sinfonia da Camera. Keeble spends his summers performing and teaching at Aria International, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and the University of Illinois Pre-College Flute Seminar. At Illinois, where he has taught since 2002 and currently chairs the Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion Area, Keeble is one of two faculty in the School of Music’s history to receive the Provost’s Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. In Spring 2017 he received the College of Fine and Applied Arts (FAA) Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2015 FAA’s Award for Excellence in Service. Keeble has held teaching posts at SUNY Fredonia (1994–95) and Oklahoma State University (1996–2002) and taught masterclasses throughout the U.S. and in New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, Ecuador, Korea, Hong Kong, and more.

Read Jonathan Keeble's full bio here.

Read the Flutist Quarterly tribute to Jonathan Keeble here.