Helen Bledsoe
After placing first at the Gaudeamus International Interpreter’s Competition in 1996, Helen has been active as a soloist, ensemble player, teacher, improviser, and author. As a soloist and full member of Cologne's renowned contemporary music ensemble Musikfabrik, she has premiered works by many composers including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Brian Ferneyhough, G.F. Haas, David Lang, and Louis Andriessen. She has taught courses worldwide and currently teaches at the Conservatory of Bremen (Hochschule für Künste). Her writings have been published in Fluit Magazine (official publication of the Netherlands Flute Association), Contemporary Music Review, and Flute (journal of the British Flute Society).
As a soloist, Helen has appeared at many major festivals including Warsaw Autumn, the Dartington Summer Festival, Nordic Music Days, and the Takefu International Music Festival in Japan. Other notable performances include appearances at the Sound Ways Festival in St. Petersburg (Russia), the Festival de Música Contemporánea in Morelia, Mexico, and a benefit concert for the Buddhist Temple Ustuu Huree in Chadan, Tuva (that’s Siberia, just north of Mongolia!).
Her broad musical education, which began at age 9 with the harpsichord, spans the globe:
She earned an Artist Diploma with distinction from the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam (with Harrie Starreveld), and studied Carnatic (South Indian classical) music with the late Jahnavi Jayaprakash in Bangalore, India.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA), summa cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh with Bernard Goldberg, where she also studied recorder and traverso with members of the University Collegium Musicum. Later, she earned a Master of Music (MM) from Indiana University, Bloomington (with Peter Lloyd and Kate Lukas), and took jazz with David Baker.
Outside of formal studies, Helen studied with Robert Dick and Aurèle Nicolet (Banff 1993).
