Biography:
Seven word bio (after Paul Holdengräber):
Advocate continuous learning, helping others and myself.
Short bio:
Kathleen Schoen plays thousands of years of history on nine different flutes and eight different recorders (at last count). Her work as a performer and a teacher has taken her to from her home base in western Canada to Peru, Ecuador, the Netherlands, and the United States.
Longer bio:
Kathleen Schoen was born in Montréal, raised in Europe and Canada, and started playing the flute in elementary school band. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from University of B.C., with a concentration in flute and music history, then went on to study in Toronto at University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music, and in Banff in a series of short term artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts. A passion for masterclasses had led her to into performing for and learning from many world renowned artists, including Julius Baker, Jeanne Baxtresser, Patrick Gallois, and Robert Aitken on flute, Wilbert Hazelzet and Janet See on baroque flute, and Piers Adams and Francis Colpron on recorder. Her professional activities include performing, teaching, and continuous learning.
Kathleen and all her flutes.
Performances are on both period and modern instruments. As a participant in the Vancouver Summer Early Music Program, she had the opportunity to learn and perform with members of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Recent performances with her current ensemble, the Schoen Duo, mix both historical and modern performance practice in arrangements and original compositions. Their innovative approach to community based site specific musical composition was recently awarded a grant from the Edmonton Heritage Council and Edmonton Arts Council to create a piece that reflects the history of the Rossdale area of Edmonton.
Teaching includes a wide range of students, from 3 year old beginners to university students and adults. A Teacher Trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Kathleen has been invited as a guest clinician to teach at programs in Lima, Peru; Guayaquil and Quito, Ecuador, and San Francisco and Minneapolis, USA. Her range as a teacher when working on-line extends even farther, to students and teachers in the Northwest Territories, Alaska, and Australia. A strong belief in the ability of every student to develop a unique voice through music has also lead her to work with the Creative Ability Development approach developed by Alice Kanack. Kathleen is now also a Teacher Trainer for that program, and can assist teachers to develop student creativity through musical improvisation.
Kathleen Schoen is now the Music Program Director of the Edmonton Suzuki Flute and Recorder Society, an organization she founded in order to meet the demand for Suzuki Method instruction. She is also a sessional instructor at the University of Alberta, Augustana campus. You can find her performing locally and on tour with the Schoen Duo, as well as freelancing with many other groups in the Edmonton area.