Featured in the March 2018 edition of New on NAXOS for her recording of Michael Daugherty’s Trail of Tears with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, flutist Amy Porter has been praised by critics for her exceptional musical talent and passion for scholarship. 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 Nicholas McGegan, Ransom Wilson, David Alan Miller, Yoel Levi, Thomas Wilkins, José-Luis Gomez, Enrique Diemecke, David Amado, Anne Harrigan, and Arie Lipsky. 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 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 Fonseca-Wollheim, 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 was recently appointed Principal Flute of North Carolina’s Brevard Music Center, where she will perform as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player.


Highlights of Ms. Porter’s 2019-20 season include a tour of Missouri with Trio Virado and appearances at the Brevard Music Center as Principal Flute, The University of Kansas, and MidSouth Flute Festival. She will also perform Daugherty's "Trail of Tears" with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. Recent study guide releases include her latest “THE GAUBERT CYCLE: The Complete Works for Flute and Piano by Philippe Gaubert” with guests Tim Carey and Penelope Fischer. The printed edition, Philippe Gaubert Treasures for Flute and Piano, is published by Carl Fischer.


Born in Wilmington, Delaware, 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.

Tim Carey, who lives in Chelmsford, England, enjoys a career full of variety, as solo performer, chamber-music player, orchestral keyboard player and teacher.

His early studies were with Harold Parker, Louis Kentner, and then, at the Royal College of Music, London, with Kendall Taylor, David Parkhouse, and Bernard Roberts. He was awarded many prizes and scholarships during his time there, both in and outside college.

He now spends his time partnering many different instrumentalists, especially flautists, in a large variety of chamber-music combinations, as well as giving the occasional solo recital or concerto performance. He is the regular pianist for many flute festivals and conventions all over the world. He has performed in the USA, China, Brazil, Costa Rica, Sweden, Slovenia and elsewhere, all working with flautists.

As an orchestral keyboard player he has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Bournemouth Orchestras, the Philharmonia, Ulster Orchestra, Scottish Opera and currently with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He is also much in demand as a teacher throughout his home county of Essex.

Penelope Fischer is the winner of three national music competitions, the principal flutist emeritus of the Ann Arbor Symphony, a performing member of Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings and the Ann Arbor Symphony Woodwind Quintet.
She can be heard on recent recordings on the Koch, Crystal, and ACA labels & a newly-released Naxos CD of the Ann Arbor Symphony showcasing her as their principal flutist & soloist in Paul Fetler’s “Capriccio.” She has been a featured soloist with AASO.

She has taught at the George Washington University, the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University & was a co-founder & founding director of the Community Music School of Ann Arbor. She has an active private flute studio and in the summers she has taught at Pine Mountain and Interlochen’s Adult Chamber Music Camp. She has performed at Aston Magna, Stonybrook Bach, Tidewater, Kapalua, Great Lakes, Macinac Island, Pine Mountain, & Leipzig Bach Music Festivals. When she lived in Washington DC she performed frequently at the Kennedy Center and National Gallery of Art and was principal flutist of the Washington Bach Consort (flute and traverso), the Alexandria (VA) Symphony, and the Washington Sinfonia.

She was the recipient of the “Distinguished Service Award” from the National Flute Association in 2015 and has been honored by the Southeast Michigan Flute Association and the Flute Society of Washington, DC for her service. She was a delegate on two professional cultural exchanges to Russia, one to China and Japan, and led a National Flute Association delegation to the Czech Republic and Germany when she was President of NFA. She has served NFA also as a Board member, competitions judge, and on many committees; served as President and Board Member of the Flute Society of Washington (DC) and President and Board Member of Southeast Michigan Flute Association. She has given masterclasses and judged competitions at many international, national, and regional music conferences.

She is currently president of Ann Arbor’s Society for Musical Arts which runs a concert series showcasing talented regional artists and sponsors two music competitions. Her degrees are from Universities of Iowa (B.Mus), Michigan (M.Mus cum laude), and Maryland (D.M.A.) with additional study in France with Jean-Pierre Rampal and with Geoffrey Gilbert. Her doctoral dissertation is on French flutist/composer/conductor Philippe Gaubert.

She has given her popular Baroque Dance 101 for Musicians  workshop all around the US and in Asia. She lectures on and collects Russian lacquer boxes – an interest started in while soloing with the U. of Iowa Symphonic Band on a US State Department Cultural Exchange to Moscow and St. Petersburg & deepened on subsequent trips to Russia in 1989, 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2007. She has been a host/guest lecturer on five U of Michigan Alumni tours to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Costa Rica, Russia, Celtic Lands (Brittany, Ireland, Wales, Scotland) and Tanzania with her husband Ken Fischer who is President of the University Musical Society of U. of Michigan. Her son Matthew Fischer is Vice-President overseeing the App Store at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA.

Representative clips from the complete 2-DVD Set

Amy Porter has released this project as a complete 2-DVD Set, as well as 10 individual video downloads. Each corresponds to a chapter of the complete set.