Leonard Garrison
Biography Leonard Garrison
Leonard Garrison
is University Distinguished Professor of Flute and Associate Director of the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho, flutist in The Northwest Wind Quintet and The Scott/Garrison Duo, and Principal Flutist of the Walla Walla Symphony. A recipient of an Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship, a President’s Mid-Career Award at the University of Idaho, and 2016 prizes as Instrumental Soloist and in Chamber Music from The American Prize, he is faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. He has recorded eleven critically acclaimed CDs for Albany Records, Capstone Records, and Centaur Records and been a soloist on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, winner of the 2003 Byron Hester Competition, concerto soloist on both flute and piccolo, and a frequent performer at National Flute Association conventions.
Garrison has served as President, Treasurer, Secretary and Convention Program Chair of The National Flute Association. Previously, he was Instructor of Flute at The University of Tulsa, Visiting Assistant Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas and at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. He has performed in the Chicago Symphony (including a 2003 tour of Japan), the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Spokane Symphony, the Tulsa Philharmonic and Tulsa Opera Orchestra, the Scotia Festival, and the Music Festival of Arkansas. The Flutist Quarterly, Flute Talk, and other journals have published his many articles, and he has presented at The British Flute Society, national conferences of the National Flute Association, the College Music Society, the Midwest Clinic, and the National Association of Wind and Percussion Instructors, and conferences of the National Association for Music Education Northwest Division, the Ohio Music Education Association, and the Idaho Music Educators Association.
Leonard holds a Doctor of Music degree from Northwestern University, where he studied with Walfrid Kujala and Richard Graef. He received Master of Music and Master of Arts degrees from Stony Brook University, studying with Samuel Baron. His Bachelor of Music is from the The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where his teacher was Robert Willoughby.
“Garrison’s playing combines great virtuosity, superb control of musical expression, and high energy with lyricism. He makes the most difficult technical passage seem easy and extreme dynamics and wide leaps appear effortless.” – The Flute Network.
