Emily Skala

Emily Skala’s passion for the flute has led her all over the country and beyond. Her range of experience encompasses engagements long and short with ten professional orchestras on four continents. In 2013 she performed as Guest Principal Flute for the Orquestra Sinfoníca do Estado de São Paolo (OSESP) in a recording of Prokofiev’s 2nd Symphony with Marin Alsop on the Naxos label, and for their 13-concert European Tour. In the same year, as a finalist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Flute search, Ms. Skala performed and recorded in the position of Guest Principal Flute under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach, with piano soloist Simon Barto, Olivier Messiaen’s “Aux Canyons des Etoiles” for the LPO label. In 2018, she again appeared as Guest Principal Flute, this time with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) over a period of five weeks, recording a collage of Russian war horses. In 2019 Miss Skala had the honor of performing two weeks at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop and Leonard Slatkin, also in the role of Guest Principal Flute.

Her critically acclaimed CD, “Voices Through Time,” music by Brahms and Schubert (Summit Records, 2001) is frequently aired on radio stations throughout the United States and occasionally overseas: “Emily Skala, brings…conviction and sensitivity to these sonatas, not to mention superb articulation and intonation…The subtle, prismatic glow of Skala’s tone and, above all, the deep warmth of her phrasing matches…anything (the clarinet and viola) can achieve…” (Baltimore Sun, 2002)

Ms. Skala taught at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University from1989 to 2019 and has taught at international music festivals, national flute festivals, flute intensives, and youth orchestras, as well as being a Guest Clinician at Oberlin, Eastman, University of Connecticut, University of Maryland, and Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Former students of hers perform, teach and lead in professional organizations, orchestras, chamber ensembles, universities and secondary schools in Europe, Asia, and North America. An expert in orchestral repertoire, Ms. Skala has been called upon to adjudicate and teach at the National Flute Association’s annual conventions and to perform in honor of her former teachers.

Not so long ago, Ms. Skala distinguished herself as one of the world’s leading orchestral flutists at the 2014 audition for the position of Principal Flute of the Berlin Philharmonic, the only American flutist to advance to the semifinals. Indeed, while Principal Flutist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Skala appeared as soloist with the orchestra on as many as eighteen separate occasions with such internationally renown maestri as Marin Alsop, Juanjo Mena, David Zinman, and Mario Venzago. She has also performed on numerous recordings under the direction of David Zinman and Marin Alsop since her appointment in 1988 on the Decca, Telarc, Sony, Naxos, OSESP (Orquestra Sinfoníca do Estado de São Paolo) and LPO (London Philharmonic Orchestra) labels. Her most recent recording is with Maestro Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra of the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 with Gil Shaham (2018).