Felix Skowronek Memorial Event
Saturday, November 7, 2026 | 4:00-6:00pm
Queen Anne Lutheran Church
2400 8th Ave W, Seattle, WA 98119
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT
$10 Members | $15 Non-Members
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The Felix Skowronek Memorial Event is an annual event to in honor the Seattle Flute Society's founder, Felix Skowronek. The event traditionally features local artists and/or wooden flute specialists. Past events have featured performances by Demarre McGill, Jeffrey Barker, Evan Pengra Sult, and Janet See, among others. In the online 2020-2021 Season, the Felix Skowronek Memorial Event was expanded into a series of presentations, workshops, and performances by local flutists, teachers, and artisans. The event in its original design returned for the 2021-2022 Season onwards.
The 2026 Felix Skowronek Memorial Event features Timothy Hagen, professor of flute at Central Washington University and the newly named conductor of the BYSO Flute Choir, in a recital and workshop. A detailed schedule of events follows.
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Event Schedule
4:00pm - Workshop with Tim Hagen
"The Pasture of the Sacred Cows: Rethinking the Fundamentals of Flute Playing"
In this participatory workshop, we will examine misconceptions that persist among flutists regarding essential building blocks of flute playing. Topics to be covered include breathing, support, tone, vibrato, technique, and practicing. Be ready to revitalize your playing and send a few sacred cows out to pasture! **Bring your flutes!**
4:45pm - Performance by the SFS Flute Chamber Ensemble
The BRAND-NEW SFS Flute Chamber Ensemble, under the direction of Elizabeth Jolly, makes its debut with performances of works by Guest Artist Tim Hagen.
5:00pm - Guest Artist Recital
Tim Hagen is joined by pianist Michelle Kim for an exciting and varied recital program. Cookie reception to follow.
PROGRAM
Sonata in E minor, K. 304 | W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Allegro
Tempo di menuetto
Mei | Kazuo Fukushima (1930-2023)
from Four Pieces (2025) | Timothy Hagen (b. 1981)
II. Ballad: Doubt
Don’t Forget to Write (2022) | Amanda Harberg (b. 1973)
Blue Skies
Flying the Coop
PAUSE
Sonata in D major, Op. 94 | Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Moderato
Scherzo: Presto
Andante
Allegro con brio
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Guest Artists: Timothy Hagen and Michelle Kim
Timothy Hagen is an internationally acclaimed performer, composer, scholar, and educator. His flute playing has been praised for "technical virtuosity and musical sensitivity" (NewMusicBox) and "real flair" (The Well-Tempered Ear), and he has been a prizewinner at multiple major flute competitions, including the Myrna Brown Artist Competition (First Prize and Best Performance of the Commissioned Composition), Australian International Flute Competition (Second Prize), and Pasadena Showcase House Instrumental Competition (Jack Smith Award for Most Promising Talent). As a soloist, Hagen has appeared in concert at New York’s 92nd Street Y and Lincoln Center in addition to multiple concerto performances with the Missouri Symphony. He is Principal Flute of the Dubuque Symphony and was Principal Flute of the Missouri Symphony from 2009-2016. Additionally, he has performed with orchestras across the country, including the Minnesota Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, and Dallas Wind Symphony. His experience as a chamber musician includes fellowships at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Atlantic Music Festival.
In addition to his experience as a performer, Dr. Hagen’s compositions are performed by professional musicians across the country and have frequently won prizes from the National Flute Association (USA) since 2018. Both his music and his pedagogical writings are published under the Owl Glass Music imprint, and his scholarly work has appeared in the journals of the National Flute Association and British Flute Society.
As an educator, Dr. Hagen has worked with all ages and experience levels, having served on the music faculties of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and Oklahoma State University, in addition to significant experience as a teaching artist and workshop facilitator with esteemed institutions such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lincoln Center Education, and Dallas Symphony. His students have found success as performers, collegiate and private flute instructors, public school teachers, historians, and scientists. He is forever indebted to his teachers, including Marianne Gedigian, Jim Walker, Philip Dunigan, Renée Siebert, Tadeu Coelho, Chelsea Czuchra, Felicia McNaught, and Tina Ballard.
Learn more at www.timothyhagen.com/
Michelle Kim is a Canadian pianist whose work spans chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and vocal collaboration. She is currently a member of the collaborative piano faculty at Central Washington University, and previously served as a collaborative pianist at the University of Toronto.
From 2023 to 2025, she held the prestigious role of Collaborative Piano Fellow and Coordinator at the Yale School of Music, playing for the studios and classes of Augustin Hadelich, Martin Fröst, Ani Kavafian, Tai Murray, Soovin Kim, Ettore Causa, Tara O’Connor, William Purvis, Kevin Cobb, Paul Watkins, and others.
Her festival and program appearances include the American Liszt Society, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Orford Music Academy, Musiktheater Bavaria, and the Mirabella at ASU Musician-in-Residence Program, where she contributed to developing an award-winning intergenerational music initiative. She has performed at major venues including Carnegie Hall, the National Arts Centre, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Westport. She has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Vijay Iyer, Ettore Causa, and Scott Hartman.
In 2026, she will return to the Orford Music Academy as studio pianist for the classes of Sibbi Bernhardsson, Jonathan Crow, Kelly Zimba Lukić, and Sooyun Kim.
Felix Skowronek (1935-2006) earned a B.M. from the Curtis Institute, where he was a student of William Kincaid. Skowronek was a founding member of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet and played as principal flute of the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra, and the Seattle, St. Louis, and Puerto Rico Symphonies. He also played principal for the Seattle Opera's summer series of Wagner's Ring cycle. He served as professor of flute at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and the University of Washington. He was the founding president of the Seattle Flute Society and served as president of the National Flute Association from 1985-86. He was twice the music director of Belle Arte Concerts, from 1983-1992 and 1999-2004.
Skowronek acted as a consultant to the Verne Q. Powell Company. An authority on the use of foreign and domestic hardwood species for flute and woodwind instrument manufactures, he documented the tonal qualities of numerous hardwood species carved into wood flutes and wood flute head joints. His research, performances and lectures throughout the 1980s and 1990s contributed significantly to the return of the wood flute and the option of using a wood head joint to create specific tonal effects relevant to the specific genre of music to be performed.