Professor Amy Porter wins prestigious Henry Russel Award

July 13, 2005

Associate Professor of Flute Amy Porter is the recipient of the 2006 Henry Russel Award from the University of Michigan.  The award is one of the highest honors the University of Michigan confers on faculty with less than six years in tenure. It recognizes distinguished scholarship and conspicuous ability as a teacher.

Ms. Porter is the third Professor of Music since 1926 to receive this prestigious award. Previous winners from the School of Music are Composer William Bolcom in 1973 and Ethnomusicologist Dr. William P. Malm in 1966.

The Henry Russel Award was established in 1925 with a bequest from the late Henry Russel of Detroit. Russel was a U-M alumnus and former vice president of the now-defunct Michigan Central Railroad. Spanning the entire University, recipients are chosen for their achievements in research and teaching.

A graduate of the Juilliard School, Professor Porter became Associate Professor of Flute at the University of Michigan in 1999, leaving the Atlanta Symphony after eight years as Associate Principal Flute. In her six years at the University of Michigan, she founded the Southeast Michigan Flute Association (SEMFA), a non-profit organization that promotes the flute and flute playing in Southeast Michigan. As their first President, she received non-profit status for the group that now includes 184 members and eleven corporate sponsors. She also hosts the annual "Anatomy of Sound; A Workshop for Flutists" in Ann Arbor with Professor of Theater Jerald Schweibert. This is an inter-disciplinary collaborative workshop that features a special internationally recognized guest artist, morning yoga classes, lectures and gala concerts. Amy Porter has released two CD's while on faculty at Michigan as well as performed solo concerts in France, Japan, Sweden and throughout the United States.

Amy Porter is currently producing the "Karg-Elert Caprice Study Guide DVD" a Study Guide for the 30 Caprices Opus 107 which will be available through Media Ferrago Productions and  her arrangement of "Six Songs by Benjamin Godard" is currently being published by Little Piper Publishing Company and will be available in the fall of 2005. She serves as the American jury member at the Kobe International Flute Competition in August 2005, returning to Japan to judge the competition that she won in 1993. She will also be in residence at Seoul National University in Korea in May 2006.

An awards ceremony for the Henry Russel Award has been set for 4 p.m. Tuesday March 14, 2006, in the Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan.