Mary Jo White is principal flutist of the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra and recently appeared as a soloist, performing Carl Nielsen's Flute Concerto. An active performer throughout the region, Dr. White also plays regularly with the UNCW Faculty Woodwind Quintet and other faculty chamber groups. In November 2005, she presented a lecture-recital on the flute music of Albert Roussel at the College Music Society national conference in Quebec City. As a winner of the 2006 National Flute Association Performers Competition, Dr. White played in a concert of Newly Published Music at the National Flute Convention in Pittsburgh in August 2006. Before coming to Wilmington, White was the Flute Instructor at Boston College and a freelance flutist in the Boston area where she performed with Hyperprism (20th Century Ensemble in Residence at Boston College), the Emmanuel Church Bach Orchestra, the French Library Chamber Players, Underground Composers, and others. She performed as a soloist with the orchestras of all of the universities she attended: East Carolina University, Michigan State University, and Boston University (where she studied with Doriot A. Dwyer). Her prior positions include Assistant Professor of Flute at Central Michigan University and Instructor of Flute at Truman State University.   She was also the Principal Flute for the Alma and Traverse City Symphonies in Michigan, and Second Flute/Piccolo for the Lansing Symphony.

 

Composer, educator and theorist Benjamin Boone was born in Statesville, NC in 1963; related to Daniel Boone; his father was a traveling glue salesman/furniture manufacturing trouble-shooter and his mother a homemaker and teacher; youngest of five sons; music career began in grade-school when he wrote music for puppet shows; moved all over since; Fulbright Senior Specialist to the Republic of Moldova; recorded rhinoceros vocalizations in Zimbabwe; compositions performed all over the world and on numerous CD's; award-winning teacher; was a Music Manager in New York; played sax all over the U.S.A. and Europe; loves to ski, compose, learn, read, teach and play with his wife and kids; teaches theory and composition at California State University, Fresno; loves "30 Rock," "The Thomas Jefferson Hour" and the principles of the Enlightenment.