Anatomy of Sound VoiceBox 3-D

Flutist Amy Porter has been praised by critics for her exceptional musical talent and passion for scholarship. In a versatile and distinguished career as a concert performer, she has become one of the most skillful and creative muses for composers of our time. Ms. Porter has been hailed for her “strength, beauty, a captivating and seductive force, sensitivity, perfection, and a sense of humor.”

Her performances of American flute concerti have won critical acclaim. When she performed her commissioned concerto Trail of Tears by Michael Daugherty with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra in January 2020, one reviewer wrote, “Porter’s appearance with a modern piece in which such embedding of the guest artist with the vehicle shone so brightly seems to me a high point in the ICO’s recent history.” She recorded and performed the work with the Albany (NY) Symphony in May 2015, prompting the Albany Times Union to write: “The focus remained on Porter’s beautiful tone color and Daugherty’s imaginative deployment of the orchestra.” American Record Guide has lauded her playing for having “an innocent American lyricism…” and a reviewer for annarbor.com noted that “Amy Porter deeply imbues her performance with a sense of narrative and of speech and, yes, drama.”

This captivating performer was described by Carl Cunningham in the Houston Post as having “succeeded in avoiding all the overdone playing styles of the most famous flutists today.” In American Record Guide, flutist Christopher Chaffee wrote, “If you have not heard her playing, you should.” Ms. Porter “played with graceful poise,” noted Allan Kozinn in The New York Times. And Geraldine Freedman, writing in the Albany Gazette, commented, “Amy Porter showed that she’s not only very versatile but that she can do everything well. She chose a program that tested every aspect of her playing from a Baroque sensibility to using the instrument as a vehicle of sound effects, and she met each challenge with passion, skill and much musicality.”

Ms. Porter has been a featured soloist with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and with the Atlanta, Houston, Omaha, Delaware, Albany, Flint, Billings, Battle Creek, Arkansas, and Elgin symphony orchestras. She has twice appeared in recital at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, as well as at Skidmore College’s Arthur Zankel Music Center. Her collaborators have included such distinguished conductors as Joanne Falletta, Nicholas McGegan, Ransom Wilson, David Alan Miller, Yoel Levi, Thomas Wilkins, José-Luis Gomez, Enrique Diemecke, David Amado, Anne Harrigan, and Christopher Confessore. She has given premieres of works by Michael Daugherty, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joel Puckett, Christopher Caliendo, Katherine Hoover, and Frank Ticheli, among others.

Winner of the 3rd Kobe International Flute Competition and the Paris/Ville d’Avray International Flute Competition, Ms. Porter has served on international juries around the world, including the 6th Kobe International Flute Competition. She has been heard in recital on National Public Radio; highlighted on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center, and featured on the covers and as a writer for the magazines Flute Talk in the USA and The Flute in Japan.

In 2006 Ms. Porter became the first performing artist to be awarded the University of Michigan’s Henry Russel Award for distinguished scholarship and conspicuous ability as a teacher. Her popular study guide on the German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert elicited the following comment from the Spanish Flute Society: “Strength, beauty, a captivating and seductive force, sensitivity, perfection and a sense of humor characterize the impressive American flautist Amy Porter.”

She has won praise both as a recording artist and as a chamber musician. Corinna da FonsecaWollheim, in her New York Times review of the CD In Translation: Selections from J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites on the Equilibrium label, applauded Ms. Porter for her “gleaming, lyrical reading” of those works. As a member of Trio Virado with violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez and guitarist João Luiz, she recorded Mangabeira, a CD featuring works by Piazzolla, Brouwer, Hand, Assad, and Luiz, about which Ken Keaton wrote in American Record Guide: “First let me say that these are fine musicians, and they present a set of performances that are unfailingly strong, expressive, and imaginative.”

Formerly a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Porter is Principal Flute of North Carolina’s Brevard Music Center, where she performs as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player.

Highlights of Ms. Porter’s 2020 online efforts include launching her first podcast season: 22 episodes of PorterFlute Pod with a series of topics produced by Alan J. Tomasetti and Justine Sedky. Guests include entrepreneur Aaron Dworkin, Music Beyond’s Kaori Fujii, and composer Joel Puckett. Her 19-year-old workshop Amy Porter’s Anatomy of Sound will now offer two online mini-courses and will continue online through June 2021. Ms. Porter continues to utilize her teaching and performing skills on her popular YouTube channel PorterFlute, with over 6,000 subscribers. Her 2003 recording of WIlliam Bolcom’s Lyric Concerto was re-released in September 2020 on a Centaur Records album entitled Kairos.

Born in Wilmington, DE, Ms. Porter graduated from The Juilliard School and pursued further studies at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg. She plays a 14K white gold flute with rose gold engraved keys made for her by the Wm. S. Haynes Co.

Amy Porter is represented worldwide by Sciolino Artist Management, samnyc.us.