Biography
Hailed for her "superb command of color and nuance" by Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Elise Blatchford is a flutist involved in many projects. As principal flute of the YOA Orchestra of the Americas, she has played in Carnegie Hall in New York and on two Latin American tours spanning Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay. She traveled in 2009 to the Dominican Republic with the group Traveling Notes in a project supported by the U.S. Embassy and the Dominican Ministry of Culture to mentor chamber musicians in Santo Domingo. She is currently an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the flutist for the Civic Orchestra Wind Quintet. She is a founding member of the City of Tomorrow, a new group focusing on contemporary music for winds in Chicago.
Past highlights have included performing with the contemporary-music-focused Jolas Quintet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2003, Elise performed Joan Tower's Flute Concerto at the Aki Festival for New Music in Cleveland. Aside from new music ventures, Elise has performed with the National Orchestral Institute and freelanced with orchestras in the Chicago area, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon.
Elise has received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her teachers have included Tim Day, Michel Debost, and Kathleen Chastain.
Also a dedicated teacher, Elise teaches flute privately at her home and through Evanston Winds and Brass. If you are interested in becoming a student, come on over.