Sharon Sparrow Masterclass/Recital

Sharon Sparrow is the Assistant Principal Flutist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
For the DSO, she has also won the national audition and played the positions of both
Second Flute and Principal Flute, and can be heard on numerous recordings and
broadcasts throughout her 24 year tenure. However, Sharon is best known for her
successful audition training both nationally and internationally based on her book, “6
Weeks to Finals”, published by Presser in 2016 and awarded a top publication award by
the NFA that same year.

She is a frequent Guest Artist at many Flute Festivals and holds numerous masterclasses throughout the year, most recently for The Consummate Flutist, the Philadelphia Flute Society, Ball State University Flute Day and Rob Knopper’s famed Inner Circle. In 2018, “Telemann for Two”, a collection of duets based on the Telemann Solo Fantasies which she composed with colleague Jeffery Zook was also published and released by Theodore Presser. The much anticipated “Telemann for Two, Volume Two” is now released in 2022 and available worldwide. During the pandemic, Sharon started a private online group, The Unlimited Flutist to form a sense of community for flutists internationally to train, collaborate and perform. This quickly branched out to The Audition Advantage, an online program that includes offerings such as “6 Weeks to Finals, Live!” , a non competitive, highly effective program for all musicians preparing for auditions. Sharon splits her time in the summer between the SO, Interlochen Arts Academy and Strings Festival in Colorado, providing a perfect blend of performing and teaching opportunities, both which she is equally passionate about. Receiving her Bachelor of Music from the prestigious Juilliard School, and
Master of Music at Mannes College of Music, Sharon credits her three major teachers, Julius Baker, Thomas Nyfenger and Geoffrey Gilbert with her unending pursuit of excellence and love for the flute and music making.

Dr. Mitchell Giambalvo moved to Salt Lake City on a whim right before the pandemic. Originally from Pennsylvania, he received his doctorate from Florida State University in piano performance. He went back to complete a second Masters degree in collaborative piano before teaching piano at Troy University in Alabama.

After moving to SLC in 2019, Giambalvo is highly active in collaborating. On staff at the University of Utah where he is a vocal diction coach for singers and works with instrumentalists, Giambalvo is also a pianist with the Utah Symphony, works with faculty at UVU, BYU,  and U of U, as well as performs on the NOVA Chamber Series.

Praised for her “sheer virtuosity” by Fanfare Magazine, Dr. Kelariz Keshavarz is an award-winning international flutist, active in classical and contemporary spheres, and an avid sound artist, improviser, and pedagogue.

Passionate about contemporary music, Kelariz has performed in many festivals, including the Tehran Contemporary Music Festival (TCMF) in Iran, the Missouri International Composers Festival (MICF), the Flute New Music Consortium (FNMC), the National Flute Association (NFA), the World Flute Festival in Argentina, the SiMN – International Symposium of New Music in Brazil, the New Jersey Flute Fair, the Utah Flute Association Festival, the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Conference, and the SCI Region VI Conference in the United States and has participated in multiple world premieres. She co-founded the Petrichor Records recording label, sponsoring and publishing contemporary music by living composers worldwide. She is the artistic director of PR Young Iranian Composers Project, a pedagogy/competition program, working with world-renowned composers such as Chaya Czernowin, Ken Ueno, Katharina Rosenberger, Nina C. Young, Don Freund, and Reza Vali.

She is an active flutist of new music by living Iranian composers and has commissioned more than fifty new compositions. She has collaborated with visual artists, movie directors, sound artists, and choreographers and toured internationally. The “Iranian New Waves” project is the culmination of these all; an anthology of contemporary music by living Iranian composers, released in 2020 under Petrichor Records. As a performer-composer, her upcoming electro-acoustic improvisatory compositions, “Minimpronics,” was released under Petrichor Records in 2021.

An aspiring soloist, she has toured with her Iranian New Waves project in Iran and the United States, presenting more than fifty newly commissioned works by Iranian composers. She has performed a contemporary flute concerto by Kambiz Roshanravan with the Camerata Orchestra. She was the award-winner of the 23rd International Fajr Festival and Iran’s fourth Tehran Contemporary Music Festival. 

She has performed as principal and guest principal flute with Tehran Symphony, Tehran National Orchestra, Tehran Philharmonic, Parsian Orchestra, Nilper Orchestra, Camerata Orchestra, SouthSide Philharmonic Orchestra with Patrick Clark, and on the Odyssey Chamber Series under the baton of Kirk Trevor, performing around the world in the countries Iran, Austria, Lebanon, and the United States.

Dr. Kelariz Keshavarz has served as a lecturer at Tehran University of Art, onboard the Iran Flute Society and Tehran Flute choir. Enthusiastic about contemporary flute pedagogy, she has toured with her workshop seminars on Flute Contemporary Extended Techniques and given lecture recitals performing music by living international composers.

Dr. Keshavarz holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts in Flute Performance from the University of Utah, with a secondary emphasis in Early Music Studies and Traverso Performance. Kelariz plays a custom handmade 14K Haynes and custom Grenser traverso. She is currently appointed as the Raymond C. Morales Postdoctoral Fellow in Music Education at the University of Utah.