The Southeast Michigan Flute Association presents the 2024 SEMFA Festival Spring 2024 with featured guest Terri Sánchez. 

Terri Sánchez is a Miyazawa Performing Artist and the newly appointed Assistant Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University. Legendary flutist Paula Robison writes, “Sánchez has a beautiful presence as a player, and her sparkling clear sound spins out and fills the air with poetry.” After Sánchez premiered his new work for flute and piano, Archetypes, composer George Chave wrote, “her ability to pull the audience in and take them along for the ride is a true joy. Terri is a musician’s musician.” She is the author of The Aspiring Flutist's Practice Book Series published by Carolyn Nussbaum Music Co. and her recent compositions include The Walrus and the Carpenter and The Red Queen for flute/narrator and piano as well as Scarborough Fantasy for Solo Flute. She performs on a Miyazawa Classic Rose Silver flute.  

Sánchez is a laureate of many national competitions: 1st Prize, National Flute Association Orchestral Audition Competition, 2nd Prize, NFA Young Artist Competition (along with “Best Performance of the Newly Commissioned Work”), 1st Prize, San Diego Flute Guild Artist Gold Competition, 2nd Prize, Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, 2nd Prize, Upper Midwest Flute Society Young Artist Competition and Finalist, Walfrid Kujala Piccolo Competition. She also performed with the SMU Meadows and UNT Symphony Orchestras as a winner of both university concerto competitions.    

An advocate for musician self-care and positive practice sessions, Sánchez is dedicated to creating resources for musicians that help them release practice anxiety and discover their true potential in the practice room. She has given numerous presentations based on these topics at National Flute Association Conventions, flute festivals and universities across the country. Each summer, she performs and teaches as a faculty member for Floot Fire, week-long summer masterclasses for beginner through advanced high school flutists. Sánchez was the flute professor for the University of Texas at Arlington from 2013-2021 where she was also the founder and creative director of the Maverick Flute Choir, a unique flute ensemble that sought to engage and inspire audiences with an unconventional fusion of classic, contemporary, original, and collaborative musical works, often fused with a wide variety of other artistic mediums. Under her guidance, the MFC wrote and performed four original "musical plays" at local, state and national festivals and conventions: Take a Chance, The Princess & The Dragon, As the Fog Descends Upon Us, and I Dream of Flute Choir. Recently, she created two online courses for flutists and teachers of all levels, Fall in Love With Your Flute and the Flute Teacher Superhero Course. 

Sánchez received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Flute Performance, with a secondary emphasis in Music Education, from the University of North Texas, where she worked as a Teaching Fellow and Flute Choir conductor. She earned her Master’s degree at Southern Methodist University and her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her past flute instructors include Leticia Ledesma, Helen Blackburn, Jean Larson-Garver, Alexa Still, Kara Kirkendoll Welch, Deborah Baron, Terri Sundberg and Elizabeth McNutt. She is especially grateful to her two mentors, Claire Johnson and Gabriel Sánchez.