Lois Herbine

Lois Herbine

Lois Bliss Herbine is a solo piccolo artist on Crystal Records. All six accompanied recordings from her CD, Take Wing, including premieres of Daugherty, Persichetti, and Dorff, have been broadcast on radio stations across the United States. Flute Talk and Flute Network reviews describe her piccolo as "enchanting", "mesmorizing", and "vivid". The Gramophone hails her recital as "high-flying" and "beguiling" and Music Web International exclaims, "Another leading wind soloist takes flight". In 2000 Herbine was invited to give a solo performance on the flute and piccolo for the Republican Governors' Association at the Republican National Convention. Since then she has performed multiple times at National Flute Association conventions to favorable press. As a commercial orchestral artist, Herbine has served as principal flute for Peter Nero's Philly Pops and the Mann Festival orchestra, and performed in soundtracks for television and radio specials, theme music and commercials. Most recently, she was a backup artist for SONY artists John Legend and Il Divo.

Herbine is the founder and artistic director of Concerts at Carmel in Glenside, PA, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2009. A new recording on the DTR label highlighting live performances from Concerts at Carmel's 2006 season has received favorable press from Philadelphia critics as well as comparison to internationally renowned chamber ensembles. Her piccolo playing was praised as a "model of color-driven expression" (David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Lois Bliss Herbine is a committed exponent of contemporary music, having commissioned and performed it with a number of ensembles on recordings for CRI and Albany labels including premieres of orchestral music by Gunther Schuller, Andrea Clearfield, Peter Schickele, Melinda Wagner, Sofia Gubaidulina and Bernard Hermann. In the fall of 2008 she gave the world premiere of Joseph Hallman's "Piccolo Sonata" and David Finko's "Piccolo Concerto" with orchestra and performed La Monica's "Satarello" for solo piccolo and orchestra for the first time since the Philadelphia Orchestra programmed it in 1935. Herbine will perform the La Monica with the Ocean City Pops this summer and plans to record her first solo CD for flute on the Naxos label with the music of Daniel Dorff.

As a writer, Herbine has contributed articles for the national trade magazines Flute Talk and The Flutist Quarterly and most recently for the American Music's Center's web-magazine, New Music Box. She earned her Bachelor of Music from the New School of Music, Philadelphia, receiving the school's highest honors in performance and academic achievement. A native of the Philadelphia area, Herbine is a student of William Kincaid's "American School" and her biography is listed in the twelfth edition of The International Who's Who of Musicians. She is the American representative for the biannual International Piccolo Symposium, having taught alongside Nicola Mazzanti (Italy), Christine Beard (USA) and Jean-Louis Beaumadier (France) and with Lior Eitan (Israel) in 2011. With the support of Powell Flutes, Herbine is currently giving lectures and masterclasses on performing musically, following the pedagogy of her teacher John Krell and his book Kincaidiana on the legacy and pedagogy of the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal winds from the "Golden Era".

Artist Equipment

Verne Q. Powell Flutes, Custom Grenadilla piccolo

Contact Information :

Selected Discography

Take Wing, Premiere recordings for piccolo by American composers, Crystal Records, 2004