Leone Buyse

LEONE BUYSE is the Joseph and Ida Kirkland Mullen Professor of Flute at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. In 1993 she relinquished her position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra to pursue a more active teaching and solo career after 22 years as an orchestral musician. Acting principal flutist of the BSO during her last three years in Boston, she was invited by Seiji Ozawa to join the orchestra in 1983 as assistant principal flutist and principal flutist of the Boston Pops. Previously she served as assistant principal flutist of the San Francisco Symphony and played solo piccolo and second flute with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

The only American finalist in the 1969 Geneva International Flute Competition, Ms. Buyse has appeared as soloist with l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, the San Francisco Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the New Hampshire Music Festival, of which she was principal flutist for ten years. She has performed with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players throughout Europe and Japan, with the Tokyo, Juilliard, Brentano, and Muir String Quartets, the Boston Musica Viva, Da Camera of Houston, and in recital with Jessye Norman and Yo-Yo Ma. Ms. Buyse has also been a guest artist on the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s chamber series in Ottawa. Summer festival appearances include Aspen, Sarasota, Norfolk, Orcas Island, Domaine Forget (Quebec), ARIA International Summer Academy, the Ithaca Flute Institute, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Sitka, Maui, Steamboat Springs, Strings in the Mountains, the Lake Placid Institute, and the Park City International Festival in Utah. With her husband, clarinetist Michael Webster, she performs in the Webster Trio and the Buyse-Webster Duo.

Widely renowned as an educator, Ms. Buyse has taught at the University of Michigan, the New England Conservatory, Boston University, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and as a visiting associate professor at the Eastman School of Music. Her students hold positions in many major orchestras, including the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Houston, Kansas City, Syracuse, and Charlotte, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Florida Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, the National Taiwan Symphony, and the Adelaide Symphony. Others are professors at such schools as the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Arizona State, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Memorial University (St. John’s, Newfoundland), Ball State University (Muncie, IN) and St. Olaf College.

Ms. Buyse has presented recitals and master classes at universities, conservatories and festivals across the United States, as well as in Canada, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and Brazil. She may be heard as solo flutist on numerous recordings of the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and the San Francisco Symphony for the Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Victor, and Sony Classical labels. Her solo and chamber music recordings are available on the Crystal, Boston Records, CRI, Centaur, Hyperion, Elektra/Nonesuch, Equilibrium, Danacord, and Nami/Live Notes labels.

A native of Ithaca, New York, Ms. Buyse graduated with distinction from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a student of Joseph Mariano. Awarded a Fulbright grant, she subsequently studied in France with Michel Debost, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Marcel Moyse. Also an accomplished pianist, she served for two years as accompanist at Rampal’s summer master classes in Nice, France. An active member of the National Flute Association, she has served on the Board of Directors and as program chair for the 1987 convention in St. Louis, an event attended by more than 2200 flutists. She has been a featured soloist at NFA conventions in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Columbus, San Diego, Anaheim, Las Vegas, and New Orleans.

During the 2010 convention in Anaheim Ms. Buyse was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the flute community worldwide.