Daily Inspiration: Meet Mary Matthews

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Matthews.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I began playing the flute in the second grade, and I was lucky enough to grow up in Rochester, NY where the Eastman School of Music is located. No one in my immediate family plays a musical instrument or studies music, so when my middle school band directors told my parents that I should study music more seriously, I was able to join the Eastman prep program for pre-college-aged students. In the prep program, I was able to take private lessons, music theory, music history, and flute choir, and I eventually made the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra where I got to go on tour in Italy for the first time.

Music led me to so many incredible places, and I realized early in my life that it fulfilled my love of music, collaborating with lots of artistic people, and traveling the world. I studied flute at Eastman with Jan Angus, then I attended the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music in Cleveland, OH for my undergraduate degree in flute performance where I studied with George Pope. I then went on to get my master’s degree in flute performance from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. At Peabody, I also discovered my love of the music business, community outreach and engagement through music, and ultimately teaching. During this time, I built a private flute studio of about 30 flute students in Baltimore and D.C., and I freelanced at community events, schools, and retirement centers across the mid-Atlantic region. I decided that my end goal with teaching was to teach at the collegiate level, so I decided to go on and earn my doctorate in flute performance and pedagogy. I met my trumpet-playing husband at Peabody in 2008, and together we relocated to Hartford, CT in 2011 where I completed my Doctor of Musical Arts degree while simultaneously freelancing, teaching privately, and beginning my collegiate adjunct teaching career. After completing my degree, my husband was offered a graduate teaching assistantship to earn his doctorate in trumpet performance and pedagogy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, so in 2014, we relocated to Colorado. Boulder was such a beautiful and inspiring place where we loved to hike, camp, and enjoy the outdoors alongside building our music careers.

It is also where we adopted our rescue dogs, Avery and Chipper! There, I taught privately in Boulder and Denver, taught with an after-school outreach program in Denver, freelanced across Colorado and surrounding states, and began my career teaching classes and performing across the country. The year my husband completed his doctorate, I was offered my first tenure-track position as the flute professor at Tennessee Tech University, and that is what brought us to Tennessee in 2018. Since then, I have loved building a diverse career performing and teaching across the state, but specifically, working quite a bit as a session musician, orchestral musician, and professor in Nashville and Cookeville.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think a life in the arts is never a smooth road, but for me, the struggles have been more than worth it! I tell my students daily that as musicians, we are always going to get 10-20 rejections for every one acceptance, so we have to learn from our failures, pick ourselves up quickly, and put ourselves out there regularly. I have been rejected from schools I once thought were dream schools, lost competitions, and didn’t advance at auditions or job interviews, but I see now in retrospect that each thing that didn’t work out led me to something that was a better fit down the line.

The biggest setback came in 2012 when my mom, the biggest supporter of my career and life in music, passed away 2012. After that, I had to learn how to navigate this path without her, and it took a long time, but with the support of my husband, family, students, and community, I didn’t quit during that really difficult time, and I am so thankful that I didn’t.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As a flute performer, I am an orchestral musician, a session musician in Nashville, a chamber musician, and a solo performer. As a chamber musician, I perform with Khemia Ensemble, Duo Rossignol, Maryland Chamber Winds, and Cumberland Quintet. As an orchestral musician, I am the principal flutist of the Bryan Symphony, and I sub with the Nashville Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Symphony of the Mountains, and the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Additionally, I record music for movies, TV shows, and video games as a session musician in Nashville at various studios. I have also released four solo and chamber music albums and have a fifth being released in 2023.

As a flute professor, I teach 16-20 undergraduate flute majors and music minors at Tennessee Tech University. I teach private flute lessons, flute choir, and flute pedagogy classes. Additionally, I travel around the country giving flute masterclasses, and I teach private lessons to motivated young high school students looking to pursue music.

As an author, I publish flute pedagogy books and articles on flute pedagogy and history.

What makes you happy?
I enjoy performing and teaching music, adopting and caring for animals, traveling, and all outdoor activities!

Thankfully, my career in music and the arts brings together many of these things…except for animals. I do enjoy having my dogs and cats around while practicing though!

Life in the arts and education makes me happy because it brings joy and meaning to others. Through playing and teaching music, I can make an impact as simple as bringing an hour of enjoyment to an audience member or as profound as helping a student discover and achieve their goals.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MaryMatthewsFlute.com
• Instagram: @marymatthews_flutist
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/MaryMatthewsFlutist
• Youtube: youtube.com/MaryMatthewsFlute 

Image Credits
Andrew Markle