Jim Walker, Master Teacher & Host
Few flutists today could be called living legends, yet Jim Walker is surely among those few. Jim counts among his successes careers as an orchestral flutist, concert artist, jazz flutist, recording artist for hundreds of motion picture soundtracks, ethnic flutist, author, and renowned educator. His tireless contributions to the flute community have raised the visibility of the flute as a medium of expression. He has performed to great acclaim with some of the greatest classical and non-classical artists of our time, including James Galway, Leonard Bernstein, Wayne Shorter, Dudley Moore, and Paul McCartney. His students now have successful careers themselves and are performing, teaching, and contributing to their communities in places the world over. Click here for Jim's full biography.
 

Molly Barth, Guest Artist & Performer
Described as "ferociously talented" (The Oregonian), Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Alicia Barth is an active solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, specializing in the music of today. As a founding member of the new music sextet eighth blackbird, Molly toured extensively throughout the world, recorded four CDs with Cedille Records, and was granted the 2000 Naumburg Chamber Music Award and first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Currently, as co-founder of the Beta Collide New Music Project, Molly collaborates with individuals from a broad spectrum of disciplines such as music, art, sound sculpture and theoretical physics.

Molly is the Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Oregon and has taught at Willamette University and held residencies at the University of Chicago and at the University of Richmond. She plays a Burkart flute and piccolo, and a 1953 Haynes alto flute.
 

Demarre McGill, Guest Artist & Performer
Winner of a 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant, flutist Demarre McGill has performed concerti with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony, among others. An active chamber musician, Mr. McGill is a member of the Jacksonville, Florida based Ritz Chamber Players and has been a member of Chamber Music Society Two, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s program for emerging young artists, as well as having performed in numerous chamber music festivals and recordings.

Currently principal flutist of the San Diego Symphony, Mr. McGill has held the same position with The Florida Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He also served as acting principal flutist of the Pittsburgh Symphony during the 2005-06 season. Most recently, he won the audition for principal flute with the Seattle Symphony.

In addition to his performance schedule, Mr. McGill is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Art of Élan, a chamber music organization in San Diego that aims to expose new audiences to classical music.

Mr. McGill received his Bachelor’s Degree in Flute Performance from The Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner. He continued his studies with Mr. Baker at the Juilliard School, where he received a Masters of Music degree.

Jed Wentz, Traverso & Baroque Flute Specialist
Jed Wentz began his flute studies with Walter Mayhall in Youngstown, Ohio, and continued studying with James Walker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied modern and historical flutes at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Robert Willoughby and Michael Lynn, and received a Soloist's Diploma from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague after three years with Barthold Kuijken.

He has performed and recorded with groups such as Musica Antiqua Koln, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Capriccio Stravagante Paris and the Gabrielli Consort. In 1992 he founded Musica ad Rhenum, with whom he has recorded more than 20 CDs both as flutist and conductor. His recording of the complete flute sonatas of Locatelli was awarded the prize for the Best Recording of Italian Music 1995 by the Fondazione Cini Venetia.

Mr. Wentz teaches at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music, and lectures regularly on performance practice at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has published articles in Early Music, Concerto, and Tijdschrijft voor Oude Muziek. He is pursuing his doctorate through Leiden University, with his research centering on the relationship between 18th-century staging and tempo in the tragedie en musique.

Greg Milliren, Guest and Mock Audition Coordinator
Currently Associate Principal Flute with the Minnesota Orchestra, Greg Milliren has captivated audiences internationally with his expansive, silvery tone and engaging, soulful expression. Prior to his appointment in Minneapolis, he was an active freelance flutist and teacher in Los Angeles, enjoying frequent orchestral, chamber music, solo, and recording collaborations with composers, orchestras, and chamber music groups across Southern California and the US. He has also performed with with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Riverside Philharmonic, the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, the New World Symphony in Miami, the National Orchestral Institute in Maryland, the Las Vegas Music Festival, and many other Los Angeles-area orchestral ensembles. He has also been a prize-winner at the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition.

Milliren earned his master's degree under James Walker at the University of Southern California, and earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, studying with Julia Bogorad-Kogan and Immanuel Davis. Other influential teachers include Adam Kuenzel, Heather Clark, and Sarah Jackson. He is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Tim Hagen, Executive Assistant
Timothy Hagen's virtuoso talent as a concert flutist has included solo appearances in some of America's most revered venues from New York's Lincoln Center and 92nd Street Y to Los Angeles' Zipper Hall. He is the Dr. Sidlee & Mary Jean Leeper Principal Flute Chair of the Missouri Symphony and has been a semifinalist in multiple international competitions, including the USA's Heida Hermanns International Woodwind Competition and Serbia's International Jeunesses Musicales Competition--where he was the only American invited to compete.

Mr. Hagen has also been invited to perform orchestral and chamber music at the Norfolk, Aspen, Hot Springs, and Las Vegas Music Festivals. He spent three seasons as Principal Flute of the American Youth Symphony and two seasons as Solo Piccolo of the YMF Debut Orchestra--two of the country's premier training orchestras--and is currently an active freelance flutist throughout Southern California.

Diana Morgan, Executive Administrator
Canadian-born flutist Diana Morgan has established herself as a versatile orchestral musician and soloist. She was a flutist with the Star Wars in Concert national tour in 2009 and 2010 international tour. She is currently a semi-finalist with the New World Symphony and has performed with the Colburn Symphony Orchestra, the Burbank Philharmonic, the American Youth Orchestra and the YMF Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles. Diana was also selected as a fellow in the prestigious National Repertory Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and National Academy Orchestra of Canada.

Passionate about chamber music, Diana is a member of the Definiens Project in Los Angeles. Diana can also be heard on the score of the major motion picture, The Soloist and on the albums of award-winning artists Shad K, Layah Jane, Anna Vogelzang.

Diana graduated from the University of Southern California in 2009 with a Graduate Certificate in Performance from the studio of Jim Walker. Previously Diana studied with world-renowned flutist and revered pedagogue Jeanne Baxtresser at Carnegie Mellon University where she received her Master’s degree. Diana completed her undergraduate degree with Dr. Amy Hamilton at Wilfrid Laurier University and graduated with high distinction.

Diana is an active teacher and clinician in Los Angeles in addition to being the Executive Administrator for Jim Walker’s 2011 Beyond the Masterclass.

Past Guest Artists
2010: Cathy Ransom-Karoly, Jed Wentz, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala, Greg Milliren
2009: Elizabeth Rowe, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala
2008: Viviana Cumplido, Heather Clark, Phil Ayling