Laura Zabanal
Flutist, Pedagogue, Scholar
I am an experienced flutist-pedagogue and have performed and taught internationally in the United States, Central America, and Europe. In 2020, I was a guest artist at Bethune-Cookman University (Daytona, FL) and Cottey College (Nevada, MO), and I recently gave the U.S. premiere of William Price's Monologue for solo flute at the CMS Southern conference in Nashville, TN. I was the featured guest artist for Savannah Area Flute Association’s inaugural Flute Day in 2018, and I was an invited guest performer for Penn State University’s Flute Day in 2019. I have held the second flute position with the Penn’s Woods Music Festival orchestra in central Pennsylvania since 2013, and for many years, I have played flute and piccolo with regional orchestras such as the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Tallahassee Community Chorus, and the Nittany Valley Symphony. I currently am a Flute Teaching Artist with The People's Music School in Chicago and an adjunct instructor of music theory at VanderCook College of Music (Spring 2020). I also work with flutists at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights and teach in-person and online private flute lessons.
I am an avid collaborator. I was a founding member of the flute quartet Silver Lining Flutes and played for two years with Penn State University’s graduate woodwind quintet, Quintessential. In 2017, the members of Silver Lining Flutes were winners of the “Promising Young Artist’s Program” co-sponsored by Costa Rica’s Centro Cultural and Florida State University’s College of Music. Our residency in San José and Pérez Zeledón was comprised of performances and masterclasses for university and K-12 students. SLF has been featured in FSU faculty showcase and University Musical Associate concerts, the HOLA Tallahassee festival, Tallahassee Music Week, the Sunday Salon Series at B-Sharps Jazz Café (FL), and at the Florida Flute Association (2016, 2018) and National Flute Association conventions (2018). We have given numerous recitals in the Tallahassee, FL area and were guest artists at Troy University in Alabama in 2018.
I am a passionate teacher, and I enjoy working with students of all ages, backgrounds, and ability levels. I have maintained a private teaching studio since 2012, and I offer lessons on flute, piccolo, and recorder. I also served as a flute teaching assistant under Eva Amsler at Florida State University (2014–2017) and Naomi Seidman at Penn State University (2012–2014). My collegiate teaching expertise ranges from teaching private flute lessons to music majors and nonmajors, courses in Baroque flute and piccolo, and flute methods courses for music education majors, to directing flute choirs and organizing and running undergraduate-level studio classes. In 2017, I was the course assistant to Eva Amsler and an English translator for American students attending flute masterclasses as part of the summer festival Musik-Kurswochen Arosa in Switzerland. I have also taught at FSU summer music camps for middle and high school band students (2016, 2019), and I gave a masterclass on Baroque music to high school students attending Penn State’s Honors Music Institute in 2018. I love working with students who are enthusiastic about learning, and I emphasize individualized instruction so that I can support different types of students in their musical goals.
Early music brings me joy.
From 2017–2019, I directed the Collegium Musicum Early Music Ensembles of Renaissance recorder, crumhorn, and shawm consorts at Florida State University. Members of FSU’s Collegium Musicum have participated in outreach events in Tallahassee, Gainesville, FL, and Thomasville, GA. The group also recorded a lengthy promotional show with Dan MacDonald for WFSU Radio in 2019 featuring Renaissance recorder consort music. I have also spent four years studying and playing the one-keyed transverse flute, and I am particularly interested in performing early music on both period and modern instruments. The collaborative work and in-depth research are what I love most about the field of early music.
I value research as an important component in the learning process.
In 2019, I completed my master’s thesis in historical musicology titled “The Case of ‘Big M’ Musicology at Florida State University: A Historical and Ethnographic Study,” in which I provide an institutional history of FSU’s musicology program in conjunction with an ethnographic analysis of the experiences of members of the FSU musicology community. In 2018, I completed my doctoral flute treatise, “Expressions of Integrity: Baroque Flute Players Reflect on Early Music.” In my work, I reframe the philosophical arguments for authenticity in the early music movement as “expressions of integrity.” I expand on this idea through an analysis of interviews conducted with three Baroque flute players from different generations within the early music movement. My research in the realm of early music has also inspired lecture-recital topics on affect and key areas, the relationship between silver and Baroque flutes, and different performance-practice approaches for the modern flutist. I aspire to help students find their musical passions while encouraging them to explore history and research as part of their musical education.
I am a member, leader, and volunteer in music organizations.
I am an active member of several organizations. I currently serve as the editor for the Chicago Flute Club's Pipeline magazine, and I am the Corporate Sponsorship Chair for the Flute New Music Consortium (FNMC). I am an active member of the National Flute Association (NFA) and the Florida Flute Association (FFA), and I have been the competition chair for the FFA Piccolo Masterclass Competition since 2018. I have performed multiple times at both NFA and FFA conventions with Silver Lining Flutes, The Raines Ensemble, and the Penn State Flute Choir. I was a winner of the NFA Masterclass Performers Competition in 2013 and have performed newly composed pieces on multiple FFA concerts as a performing member of FNMC. Additionally, I served as the president (2017–2019), treasurer (2016–2017), and vice president (2015–2016) of the Flute Association at Florida State University (FA@FSU), and I was president of the Penn State Flute Club from 2012–2013. I also interned with the William S. Haynes flute company at the 2018 NFA convention in Orlando, FL. As a musicologist, I have been a member of the American Musicological Society (AMS), the College Music Society (CMS), The Society for Eighteenth-Century Music (SECM), and Early Music America (EMA). I co-presented a paper on the musical life at Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, FL with FSU colleagues at the 2018 bi-annual meeting of the SECM.
I am grateful for my wonderful teachers and mentors.
I earned degrees from the Pennsylvania State University (BM Flute Performance, BA French and Francophone Studies, MM Flute Performance) and Florida State University (DM Woodwind Performance, MM Historical Musicology) with specializations in early music, college teaching, and Baroque flute. My flute mentors include Eva Amsler, Naomi Seidman, and Eleanor D. Armstrong, and my musicology mentors include Sarah Eyerly and the musicology faculty members at FSU. I would not be the performer and teacher I am today without the support and mentorship of these fine musicians and people. I hope to continue inspiring young musicians as my teachers have done for me!
