Ellen Huntington enjoys an active career as a soloist, teacher, and orchestral and freelance musician.  She is  second flute with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, and she has also performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and Highland Park Strings.  As a soloist, Ellen has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center,  Chicago Cultural Center, Augustana College, the University of Chicago, and National Flute Association Convention in New York City. She joins harpist Lillian Lau as a founding member of the Lyrebird Ensemble, a flute and harp duo devoted to performing works composed exclusively for that instrumentation. The duo was recently featured as a guest presenter/performer at the 2010 American Harp Society in Tacoma, WA with the lecture-recital, "The Golden Age of the Flute and Harp Duo." Ellen is a Miyazawa Artist.

Ellen is a recipient of the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Scholarship, the Farwell Award from the Musicians Club of Women in Chicago and the Sigma Alpha Iota Graduate Performance Award. She was the second place winner of the 2005 Chicago Flute Club Young Artist Competition. Other awards include first place in the Richmond (VA) Flute Fest Competition and North Shore MacDowell Society Flute Competition. In 1998 she was a semi-finalist in the national Flute Talk Competition and was selected to compete in the 2007 National Flute Association Young Artist Competition.

Ellen is on the faculty of North Park University and also maintains a full teaching schedule throughout the Chicago suburbs. She teaches privately at Highland Park High School and Glenbrook South High School and out of her home studio in Mount Prospect. Her summer teaching appointments include the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Flute Camp, the Annual Summer Flute Retreat at Illinois Valley Community College, and the National High School Music Institute at Northwestern University. She will also teach at the Midwest Young Artist Flute Camp this summer.

As the recipient of a Fulbright Grant, Ellen Huntington spent the 1999-2000 academic year studying with Jean-Claude Gérard at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany.  While in Germany she was invited to perform as soloist for the Fulbright Commission’s Berlin Seminar. 

Ellen received her Bachelor of Music degree Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University where she studied with Walfrid Kujala and Richard Graef.  She was chosen to perform the Hanson Serenade with the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra. She was awarded a University Fellowship to pursue her Master of Music degree with Katherine Borst Jones at The Ohio State University.  A winner of the Concerto Competition, Ellen performed the Mozart Concerto in D Major with the Ohio State University Symphony Orchestra.  She recently completed the Doctor of Music degree at Northwestern University with her dissertation entitled The Flute and Harp Duo in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. A winner of the 2008 Northwestern University Concerto Competition, Ellen performed the Romberg Concerto with the NU Chamber Orchestra in May 2009.

In addition to performing and teaching, Ellen serves as Treasurer of the Chicago Flute Club. In her free time she enjoys scrapbooking, gardening, and spending time with her husband, Tad.

© Ellen Huntington, 2006