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Claudia Cryer gave us the scoop on her involvement with the ESO and how she got started...

When did you start playing with the ESO?

I started playing with the ESO in the fall of 1992 which was perfect timing as our twins had just turned one year of age. 

What instrument do you play and how did you get started playing it?

Piano was my first instrument but I knew I would play a band instrument too, as my dad (“Eb”clarinet) and sisters (bassoon and clarinet) all played in the woodwind section. Flute was my choice when I heard an older girl I admired having her flute lesson. 

My parents always had music playing on the “Hi-Fi” in our home. My sisters and I were aspiring ballerinas and would dance with Dixie cups on our feet (our “toe shoes”) to my dad’s LPs.  Till Eulenspiegel was a favorite as its story was fun, and of course, it featured the Eb clarinet, my dad’s instrument. But it was a Sibelius’s Symphony #2 performance at Symphony Hall that called me to orchestral playing. It wasn’t because the flute parts were incredible but instead for the desire to sit in the midst of the orchestra so I could hear and feel the music and collaboration of musicians up close. I wanted/needed to experience that! 

What music is on my bucket list?

My bucket list is always full with any Mozart or Prokofiev but to play Copland’s Appalachian Spring again or Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun would give me so much joy.

Biography

I grew up in Aurora, Illinois and studied flute performance with Charles Delaney and Alexander Murray at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. I’m currently principal flute of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra and the Camerata Chamber Orchestra, a member of the Chicago Sinfonietta Orchestra and City Lights Orchestra, and have performed with the Oregon Symphony, Grant Park Symphony, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Symphony, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Rockford Symphony, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and Kankakee Symphony.