Midcoast High Winds Flute Choir

About the Midcoast High Winds Flute Choir

High Winds is an ensemble of volunteer professional and skilled amateur musicians from Maine’s Midcoast region. Based in Bath, Maine, the group has been entertaining community audiences since 2016 with a varied repertoire of classical, folk and popular music arrangements, as well as original compositions for flute choir.

Our flute choir is comparable to a vocal choir, with a variety of low, middle range and higher instrumental “voices”. Along with typical concert flutes, members also perform on less common instruments, including smaller, higher-pitched piccolos, and larger, lower-pitched alto flutes and bass flutes. This variety of flutes gives the ensemble a wide spectrum of pitches and tonal colors.

Founded by flutist Nan White, High Winds began as a smaller group of friends who performed quartets and quintets together. But as word spread, the ensemble soon grew into the current thirteen member flute choir, and is now under the direction of Carolyn Lanigan.

Mission

High Winds enriches the life of our community by presenting low-cost concert programs in venues throughout Maine’s Midcoast region. Members have opportunities to share their talents through performance, to grow as flutists through educational clinics, and to enjoy fellowship with other musicians.

Founder

Nan White is the founder of High Winds and the group’s first director. Having studied flute since the age of 9, Nan spent her last year of high school as an adjunct student at the Paris Conservatory studying with M. Rene le Roy. Returning to the states, she was a music major at Smith College specializing in flute and choral conducting.

Nan turned to special education after college, earning two masters’ degrees from Boston College. Music played a big part in her teaching of special needs children, but after her retirement, the flute became her primary focus once again. First initiating the Candelia Flute Quartet, and then founding the Midcoast High Winds Flute Choir with friends, has been one of the great joys of her life.

Director

Carolyn Lanigan completed a Bachelor of Music Education degree at Baldwin-Wallace College, Ohio, and a Master of Arts in flute performance at Montclair State College, New Jersey. Principal flute teachers included Mary Landolfi, Deidre McGuire, William Hebert and Peggy Schecter.

As a public school teacher in New Jersey, Carolyn taught instrumental and vocal/general music classes for grades PK-8. Today she continues to teach flute privately, and enjoys collaborating with other musicians as a free-lance performer.

In 2018, shortly after moving to Maine, Carolyn was thrilled to find our flute choir and to become a performing member of High Winds. Since 2019 she has been honored to serve as the ensemble’s director.

Members (*Charter members)

Elaine Armstrong, *Eileen Bonine, Linda Brunner, *Ann Durkin, Sally Gundersen, *Candi Hine, Kay Huggins, Rose Hutchins, Christopher Lansley, *Carol McMullen, Barbara Odiorne, KaRen Renton, *Nan White

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