About Cynthia Ellis
Instructor in Music and Powell Flute Artist

Cynthia Ellis teaches flute, directs the Flute Ensemble and teaches lecture courses at Cal State Fullerton. Solo piccolo with the Pacific Symphony, she has performed with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cabrillo Music Festival. She is also principal flute with the Opera Pacific Orchestra. Her chamber trio, Les Amis Musicalles, swept first at the National Flute Association’s Chamber Music Competition and has performed at NFA conventions in Columbus (Ohio), Dallas (Texas) and San Diego (California). The trio released their debut CD “Beyond Beethoven”, on the Centaur label in February 2006 receiving favorable reviews internationally. She writes the monthly “Let's Talk Picc” column for Flute Talk magazine, and has received many honors, including, one of 2003’s Ten Women Making a Difference in Orange County for her work in music education. In addition, she serves on the National Flute Association's Pedagogy Committee.

Jim Walker

Defining Jim Walker is no easy task. There are few musicians today who cross stylistic borders with the ease and beauty that is this man's legacy. im's flute as the lead voice of Free Flight creates its own niche in the musical heavens, not merely reshaping one idiom, but allowing a hybrid sound to emerge which propels Free Flight light years beyond jazz fusion.

Motion picture soundtracks bask in the lovely sound from his golden flute.Symphony orchestras sparkle with his dazzling technical marches and velvet-like melodies. Recital halls glow from the splendor of his classical interpretations. Students marvel at the power and control of his playing "up close".

In 2003 Paul McCartney invited Jim to join him in his performance at the Academy Awards broadcast. It was certainly the largest audience (up to 1 Billion Viewers) to have seen Jim performing.
The product of a musical household--his father, Bob, a public school band director and jazz clarinetist, his mother, Barbara, a church organist--Jim Walker's youth in Greenville, Kentucky was filled with piano (age 6) and flute lessons (age 10).

High school in Central City, Ky gave him many opportunities including exposure to other instruments; a starting guard position on the varsity basketball team; and through record clubs he sampled the latest in jazz.

A scholarship to the University of Louisville started Jim Walker in the direction of Music Education - but the "orchestral bug" bit him, committing his efforts to classical flute. He graduated with Honors and today holds the prestigious "Distinguished Alumni Award" as well as being named the first "Alumni Fellow" from the School of Music.

Following college Jim enlisted in the Army and went to West Point to join the USMA Band, simultaneously studying flute with Harold Bennett, principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.Other significant teachers have been Sarah Fouse, Francis Fuge, James Pellerite, and Claude Monteux.

In 1969, an audition with the Pittsburgh Symphony landed him the desirable position of associate principal flutist. After eight years in Pittsburgh, Jim set his sights on Los Angeles and won the principal flute position at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A further sign of his orchestral ability was the invitation of Zubin Mehta to play principal flute in the South American tour of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1982.

Jazz had always been a hobby in high school and college, Jim says, and exposure to L.A.'s live music scene rekindled his interest in jazz improvisation. By 1980 (after three years of improvisation practice) he was ready to move beyond the classical world, organizing a quartet featuring flute, piano, bass and drums.

This tradition-breaking group became Free Flight. Leaving the Philharmonic to gain the freedom to pursue the group and the freelance life must have seemed like a crazy risk in 1985. But, many recordings, successive "most valuable player" awards, a number one record ("Slice of Life"), four appearances on The Tonight Show, features on the Today Show, concert hall success and a growing demand for his master classes have proven his instincts correct.

Tadeu Coelho

Tadeu Coelho currently teaches at the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has served as associate professor of flute at the University of Iowa from 1997-2002, as assistant professor of flute at the University of New Mexico from 1992-1997, and as visiting professor at the Ino Mirkovich Music Academy in Croatia. Mr. Coelho frequently appears as soloist, chamber musician, and master clinician throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He has performed as first solo flutist of the Santa Fe Symphony, Hofer Symphoniker in Germany, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy, among others, including guest appearances with the Boston Symphony in the summer of 1996.

A recipient of many awards and scholarships, Rockefeller Foundation, Fideicomiso para la cultura México/EUA, USIA/Fulbright, LASPAU, and CAPES, Tadeu Coelho received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Julius Baker and Ransom Wilson. Started on the flute by his father, Dr. Coelho also studied with Keith Underwood, Thomas Nyfenger, Andrew Lolya, and Arthur Ephross. Mr. Coelho gave his New York recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in April of 1992. In his native Brazil, Coelho studied also with Spartacco Rossi, João Dias Carrasqueira, and Jean Noel Sagaard.

Tadeu Coelho is an avid proponent of new music and the music of the Americas. He has commissioned, performed, and recorded works by notable composers. His solo CDs include:

Modernly Classic: Mid 20th Century Works for Flute and Piano
Eighteenth-Century Flute Sonatas
Life Drawing: Works for Solo Flute
¡Rompe!: Chamber Music for Flute and Clarinet from Mexico
Tadeu Coelho Plays Flute Music from Brazil.
Flutists of the World: Paganini Caprice No. 24

He can also be heard performing works by Thomas Delio on 3D Classics and Villa-Lobos on Albany Records with his brother, bassoonist Benjamin Coelho. Tadeu Coelho has published the complete works of Pattápio Silva and other pieces for solo flute as well as collections of daily exercises with accompanying CDs. His published works are available at Flute World and Carolyn Nussbaum Music Co. Tadeu Coelho is a Miyazawa artist and performs on a 14 K gold instrument with platinum riser.