Lindsay Flowers

Dr. Lindsay Flowers is the Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music where she is a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet and guides student-generated community engagement projects. She received a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of Linda Strommen and Roger Roe. Her background in athletics distinguishes her pedagogical approach in her emphasis on performance visualization, disciplined commitment, and supportive teamwork. 

Flowers is an oboist and English hornist with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. She previously was the Principal Oboist of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, and a member of the New Mexico Philharmonic, Quad CiLes Symphony Orchestra, and Civic Orchestra of Chicago where she served as a Civic Fellow under the mentorship of Yo-Yo Ma, who she appeared with as a chamber musician on WFMT radio and in venues across the city. Flowers has also performed with the Milwaukee, Chicago, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Utah, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras, and during summers with the Santa Fe Opera, Grant Park, Midsummer’s, Lakes Area, Apollo, Bach Dancing and Dynamite, Lake George, Castleton, Aspen, and Banff Music Festivals. 

Flowers was a founding member of the Arundo Donax Reed Quintet, Bronze Medal Winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. With the Wingra Wind Quintet, she has co commissioned a work by George Lewis, and she was heard on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Sunday Afternoon Live” at the Chazen Art Museum with Lori Skelton, who also hosted her concerts with JJ Koh and Garret Ross at Midsummer’s Autumn Music Fest. Flowers gave the American premiere of Interconexiones: New Quartets for Oboe and Strings, which included works by John Richard Durant, Althea Talbot-Howard, Maricarmen Asenjo-Marrodán, Pilar Miralles, and Luke Styles in collaboration with Sarah Roper and Cuarteto Emispherio. Along with recording this album with Andrew Parker, Flowers has performed duo oboe works by Morris with James Button, by Rathbun with YounJoo Lee, and by Albinoni, Handel, and Zelenka with Margaret Butler. She has performed the Bach Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin with David Perry, and has appeared as a soloist on concertos by Cimarosa, Hidas, Marcello, Martinu, Strauss, Ticheli, and Vaughan Williams. 

In addition to performing and teaching, Flowers is recognized for her maintenance and repair of oboe and English horn gouging machines, particularly those designed by Ferrillo, Graf, Kunibert, and Gilbert. Flowers presented on this topic at the International Double Reed Conference and at Midwest Musical Imports, and she hosts annual gouger clinics for students and professionals to learn this specialized skill. She can be heard in interviews on the podcasts “Double Reed Dish” 

and “Reed Talk,” and has presented at the Fundación Universitaria Bellas Artes Conference in Medellín, Colombia, the Conservatorio Superior de Música Manuel Castillo in Seville, Spain, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington IN, and the Wisconsin Idea Conference in Madison WI. Flowers is also the Treasurer of the International Double Reed Society’s Mid North Regional Chapter and a F. Lorée Musician.