Over 100 talented young musicians are featured in this ensemble, performing challenging and well-known works from the orchestral repertory. Selected students will have opportunity to receive coaching and side by side experiences with U-M Faculty and Students. This ensemble is open to advanced strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion musicians of high school ages.

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.


Amy Porter is represented worldwide by Sciolino Artist Management (samnyc.us).

Kenneth Kiesler has been Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the School of Music of the University of Michigan since 1995. Here Kiesler directs the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra and the world premiere recordings of three works by Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty.