Carol Wincenc grew up in Buffalo, New York, studied at Oberlin College, the Manhattan School of Music and then at The Juilliard School with Arthur Lora and Samuel Baron, earning a master’s degree in 1972. She was a member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra before winning first prize in the Naumburg Solo Flute Competition and embarking on a highly successful solo career. Wincenc has appeared at international festivals and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, and London Symphony orchestras; the BBC and the Buffalo Philharmonic orchestras; and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra among others. She is a member of the New York Woodwind Quintet. She has commissioned and premiered concertos by Peter Schickele, Joan Tower, Paul Schoenfield and Tobias Picker, who composed a double concerto, The Rain in the Trees, for her and soprano Barbara Hendricks. With the Detroit Symphony in 1994, Wincenc played the world premiere of the flute concerto written for her by Christopher Rouse, which she later recorded with the Houston Symphony conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. She also gave the world premiere of Górecki’s Concerto-Cantata at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in 1992 and that work’s U.S. premiere with the Chicago Symphony in 1995. In addition to performing the classics of the flute repertoire from Bach and Mozart to Nielsen and Messiaen, she is in demand as a chamber musician and has collaborated with the Guarneri, Emerson, Tokyo, and Cleveland string quartets, and performed with Jessye Norman, Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma and Elly Ameling. She appears regularly in a duo with harpist Nancy Allen and was part of the ensemble nominated for a Grammy in 2005 for the Milken Archive’s recording of Yehudi Wyner’s music. Wincenc is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook, and often serves as a judge for prestigious competitions.
