BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Mary Holzhausen has appeared as a soloist in venues across North America and Europe. In addition to her solo work, she is Adjunct Professor of flute at Missouri Western State University, Principal flutist in the Kansas City Civic Orchestra and the Kinnor Philharmonic of Kansas City. Mary is a member of several chamber ensembles including Trio Sempre and the flute quartet, Collage.
In the Summer of 2015 Mary was a winner in the National Flute Association Newly Published Music Competition. This led to a performance at the 2015 NFA Convention in Washington, D.C. In 2016 Mary collaborated with composer, Chen Yi. The outcome of this project is Memory for solo flute, a piece originally composed for solo violin. It is published by the Theodore Presser Co. Mary also collaborated with composer Simon Fink on his piece for solo flute, Elegy. This powerful piece was the inspiration for a YouTube video dealing with race relations, bigotry, and human rights.
As a teacher, Mary serves on the faculty of the Village Music Academy teaching both flute and piano and serving as the Director of the Chamber Music Institute. Mary has led clinics on flute posture and breathing, combining yoga technique and the Alexander technique, at KMEA 2019, and universities in Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, and Chicago, Illinois.
As an arranger, Mary has compiled several Renaissance vocal pieces and arranged them for flute quartet. These works have been performed and recorded by the flute quartet Collage. Though hesitant to call herself a composer, Mary has penned a number of works inspired by her work with Collage. She is also working on a set of music inspired by the book of poetry entitled Winter Poems, edited by Barbara Rogasky.
Mary received her DMA in Flute Performance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music in May 2006. While studying at the Conservatory, under the instruction of Dr. Mary Posses, she received a fellowship as a member of the Graduate Liberace Wind Quintet. Mary received her Master’s in Flute Performance at Wichita State University, where she was a graduate teaching assistant under the instruction of Dr. Frances Shelly. While studying in Wichita, she was honored to be the recipient of two grants from the Kansas Arts Commission. The grants enabled her to study internationally with Jacques Zoon and Peter Lloyd at Oxford College in Oxford England and with Alain Marion and Emmanuel Pahud in Domaine Forget, Canada. In 2002, Mary won first prize in the first-ever Upper Midwest Flute Association Young Artist Competition.
In the year 2000-2001, Mary was a teaching artist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was also active as principal flutist in two Chicago orchestras and as a teacher and free-lancer. From 2001-2004, Mary was a substitute flutist for the New World Symphony under the direction of Michel Tilson Thomas in Miami, Florida. Also, in the summer of 2001, Mary was one of only a few Americans asked to participate in the Kobe International Flute Competition in Kobe Japan.