Summer Flute Workshop

Event Details

• Location: Fellowship Hall & the Sanctuary of Newlonsburg Presbyterian Church | 4600 Old William Penn HWY | Murrysville, PA 15668

• Cost: $30 for Master Class Performer |$15 for Participants | $10 for Auditors

• Invoices will be emailed within 72 hours of submitting a registration form with payment due within 10 days of delivery.

• Six Master Class Performers have been selected

• The Summer Flute Workshop is Suggested for High School, College and Adult learners. Younger students would benefit by attending as an auditor for a smaller portion of the day. Master Class Performers & Participants have access to all events and will perform in the Participant Flute Choir conducted by Mr. Parasky. Auditors may arrive at any time to visit with the vendors, attend both master classes and the closing concert.

• Register: HERE

  • Registration closes at 9 PM EST June 12, 2025 for Participants but Auditors may register up until the day of the event.

  • Participant slots are available for up to 50 flutists. There are no restrictions to the number of auditors that may attend.

• The Closing Concert is FREE and OPEN to the public so friends and family should plan to attend

• Vendors will be available all day in Fellowship Hall. Spend time with Flute Center & Volkwein's Music.

• Bring your flute, a personal music stand, pencil & lunch. Snacks and beverages will be provided. Low flute players must bring their own instrument for the participant flute choir if they select to play on an alto|bass|contrabass. All workshop spaces are air conditioned.

• Dress Code is causal for the day and concert. Shorts, Jeans or Athletic Wear | Solid Color or Minimal Graphics t-shirt | Open or Closed toe footwear.

Schedule

9:30-9:55 AM in the Sanctuary

Check in

10:00-11:30 AM in the Sanctuary

Participant Flute Choir Rehearsal 1 with Dan Parasky

• 10:00-11:00 AM Megan Ensor master class performers rehearse with piano for 20-minutes each (Room 101)

• 11:00-11:30 Megan Ensor rehearsal with piano for closing recital (Room 101)

11:30-12:10 PM in Fellowship Hall

Lunch (bring your own, refrigerator available to store food)

12:15-1:15 PM in the Sanctuary

Master Class with Megan Ensor

• Ava Zannikos, Cara Campbell & Athena Konidaris

• Music by Rocherolle, Hindemith & Varese

1:15-1:30 PM

Break/Vendors

1:30-3:00 PM in the Sanctuary

Participant Flute Choir Rehearsal 2 with Dan Parasky

• Naomi Seidman Master Class performer rehearsals with piano for 20-minutes each (Room 101)

• 2:30-3:00 Naomi Seidman rehearsal with piano for closing recital (Room 101)

3:00-3:15 PM

Break/Vendors

3:15-4:15 PM in the Sanctuary

Master Class with Naomi Seidman

• Mabel Buben, Rhys Vander Kelen & AJ Schmidt

• Music by Bach, Esmail & Ibert

4:15-5:00 PM in Fellowship Hall

Break/Snacks/Vendors

5:00-6:00 PM in the Sanctuary

Closing Concert

• Participant Flute Choir performs

• Mr. Parasky, Mrs. Ensor and Dr. Seidman perform

Program

Celebration Overture | Gay Kahkonen

Purple Earth | Sam Cooke

• Purple Earth II

• Purple Earth I

I May Be Down, but the Jig Is Up | Jonathan Cohen

• Konx's Jig

• She Walked This Valley, Once

• Here's Sunshine in Your Eye

Lamasery Jigsaw | Gareth McLearnon

Participant Flute Choir

Ballade | Reinecke

Syrinx | Debussy

Le Roilet Piccolo Polka | Damaré

Megan Ensor

but it's her... | Christian Glascock

Feathers and Wax | Amanda Harberg

Naomi Seidman

Gavotte | Jean-Baptiste Loeillet (arr. Nora Kile)

Divertimento | Adolphus Hailstork

• March

• Pastorale

• Bolero

Percolate | Nicole Chamberlain

Naomi Seidman, Megan Ensor and Dan Parasky

Naomi Seidman has performed across the United States, Asia, and Mexico as a recitalist, soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Performance highlights include concerts in Bangkok, Thailand as part of the Thailand Flute Festival, an artist residency in Guadalajara, Mexico and competing as a semi-finalist in the Beijing International Nicolet competition. Seidman has won the Mid-South Flute Competition and the Frank Bowen Young Artist Competition, and was first runner-up in the Myrna Brown Young Artist Competition. She has performed as flute soloist with the Penn’s Woods Summer Music Festival, Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony, Kingsville Symphony, and Ballet Austin. As a chamber musician, Seidman is a member of the Jano Duo with cellist Jonathan Dexter and the Pennsylvania Quintet with her colleagues from the Pennsylvania State University. The Jano Duo’s first album, Dreaming in Color, was released in 2015 on Albany Records. "A variety of moods is presented in this program; all the works were written for flute and cello duo, most after 2009.…This all adds up to a short but snappy collection of duos played with smiles and smoothness by the Jano Duo. The playing is perfect -- and amusing -- and the recording is not much less than that." (American Record Guide)Seidman has also collaborated with the Vienna Piano Trio and the Walden Chamber Players. She has participated in numerous music festivals, including Yellow Barn, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Austin Classical Guitar Society, and the Austin Chamber Music Center.Seidman regularly appears as a guest artist and has been a featured performer, clinician, and adjudicator at many festivals and conferences including those of the National Flute Association, International Double Reed Society, Music Teachers National Association, Flute New Music Consortium, Texas Music Educators Association, the Pennsylvania Music Education Association, the National Association for Future Music Educators, and the Flute Society of Washington. She is also a clinician with the Buffet Crampon “Pedagogics Project”, an educational service offering live, online master classes and clinics from a roster of world-class artists at no charge to educators in the US and Canada. 

Dr. Naomi Seidman joined The Pennsylvania State University School of Music faculty in 2012. In 2012, she created the Penn State Flute Day, an annual event where area flutists of all ages gather to attend masterclasses, participate in competitions and attend recitals given by renowned flutists. The symposium’s guest artists have included Jill Felber, Bart Feller, Bonita Boyd, and Jasmine Choi. Seidman’s students have been named winners and finalists in local, state, regional, and national competitions, including those sponsored by the National Flute Association, Music Teachers National Association, the Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia, and have been accepted into top summer festivals and graduate programs. In 2013, the Penn State flute choir was invited for the first time to perform at a National Flute Association Convention. Their 30-minute concert at the New Orleans convention included a new work, “Flauto Zydeco” by Mark Ballora that was commissioned for this event. In 2015, the flute choir was again invited to perform a program at the Washington, DC NFA convention. This time, their program, entitled “Sound in Motion”, presented as part of the first Youth Flute Day, combined flute choir works with choreographed dancers. Naomi is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts Fast Track America Grant. At PennState, she has received the College of Arts and Architecture’s Award for Excellence in Advising and Mentoring and the Barbara O. Korner Award for Faculty Outstanding Service. Seidman’s articles have been published in Flute Talk and the Flutist Quarterly. An active member of the National Flute Association, she currently serves on the organization’s Youth Engagement Committees, having previously served as a member of the Board of Directors, holding the elected role of secretary. Naomi received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Master of Music degree from Yale University, and her doctoral degree from the University of Texas at Austin.Naomi is a Verne Q. Powell Artist and plays on a handmade custom Powell flute.

Donna Amato was born in Pittsburgh, where she received her earliest musical training. Since her début with orchestra at the age of fourteen and her early studies with the great American virtuoso Ozan Marsh, her principal teachers were Louis Kentner, Gaby Casadesus, Guido Agosti, and Angelica Morales von Sauer.

She has appeared in concert and broadcasts all over the world, including Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, Norway, Mexico, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States. She has been a champion of contemporary music throughout her career, performing and recording many works written especially for her, and she continues to work closely with many composers in her current academic and performing roles. Last November, in this concert series, she gave a pioneering performance of the only surviving notated piano work by the brilliant, enigmatic, and controversial composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990).

Her extensive discography comprises some 20 recordings, exploring the byways and neglected repertoire of the piano, including many first- and only recordings of significant music of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

An early champion of the music of Kaikhosru Sorabji, she premiered, performed, and recorded many works starting in the early 1990s. More recently, her performance of the Piano Concerto No.5 with the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ed Spanjaard in 2003 was a spectacular success (and remains the sole occasion to date on which any of the composer’s works with full orchestra have been performed). She premiered Sorabji's 5th Symphony for solo piano in New York in 2004, and gave the first performance since the composer’s own in 1936 of the Toccata Seconda, in Pittsburgh in 2016.

Donna Amato currently teaches piano at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and works at Carnegie Mellon as an Assisting Artist.