Heather Armstrong is Assistant Professor of Oboe and Music Theory at Houghton College, Houghton, NY, and Instructor of Oboe at the Hochstein School of Music and Dance in Rochester, NY. She has also taught at Roberts Wesleyan College, Eastman Community Music School, and the Eastman School of Music.
Ms. Armstrong completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in Oboe Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 2005. She received a Master’s degree from Eastman, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Houghton College, where she was co-salutatorian. She has also studied at the MasterWorks Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts, in Alberta, Canada, and the Chautauqua School of Music. He teachers have been Richard Killmer, Anna Hendrickson, Rachel Smith, and Emily Agnew, Chris Redgate and Jan Eberle.
She has performed with the Erie (PA) and Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestras, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Equinox Symphony, and currently serves as principal oboe of the Southern Tier Symphony. She has also performed chamber music concerts at the Eastman School of Music, Houghton College, Alfred University, the Hochstein School of Music, and in Regensburg, Germany.
In March, she and composer Sun Mi Ro, interim professor of composition and theory at Houghton College, were awarded a grant from the Hanson Institute of American Music. This grant will make possible the commissioning of a new work for oboe and percussion by Ms. Ro which will be premiered by Ms. Armstrong and Jim Tiller, principal percussionist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, in the spring of 2007.
Ms. Armstrong has recently accepted a position at Luther College (Decorah, Iowa) beginning in August, 2006, where she will be Assistant Professor of Oboe and Theory.