James J. Pellerite, is well-known as an orchestral musician. He succeeded his renowned teacher, William Kincaid, as solo flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has held the position of principal flute also with the symphony orchestras of Detroit and Indianpolis and performed with orchestras of Chautauqua (NY), Radio City Music Hall (NYC), L'Orquestra Sinfonica de Puerto Rico, as well, the San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra. His performances have included those under such eminent conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Pablo Casals, Neville Mariner, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski and Igor Stravinsky.
For many years he served as Professor of Flute at Indiana University, and many of his students now hold prominent university and symphony positions. During much of his career as a classical flutist and artist teacher he has appeared throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and abroad. Numerous residencies have included tours to Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and People's Republic of China. For a return invitation by the National Youth Orchestra of Hong Kong he gave classes and woodwind seminars.
Since leaving academia, Mr. Pellerite has pursued a new career --- performing contemporary music on the Native American flute. His company, Zalo/JP-Publications, produces an important catalog featuring a wide selection of orchestral, chamber, and solo works by living composers who share his vision of bringing the Northern Plains instrument firmly into the twenty-first century. Pellerite's programs, lectures, and recordings are noted for the high quality and variety of the music presented, and reflect his passionate commitment to enhancing the capabilities, tonal spectrum, and intonation of this traditional Native American instrument. His purpose is no less than to elevate the Northern Plains flute to the status of a significant new voice on the contemporary concert stage, and he has already gone very far towards realizing this goal.
As a soloist with orchestra, he has recorded with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (David Oberg, conductor) and the Moravian Philharmonic (Lawrence Golan, Conductor). His performances of other repertoire is included on CD's by Azica, Albany Records and Centaur Records.
Having explored new pathways for the creation of contemporary music for this instrument, Pellerite's performances have proved to be a definite influence. His continual collaboration with composers has resulted in a stretching of the musical boundaries with a distinctive new development of the Native flute's technical capacity.
James Pellerite will be performing David Yeagley's “Wes-ih-vah-peh” January 24-26, 2008.