Performers & composers

Helen Bledsoe

Since winning first-prize in the 1996 Gaudeamus International Interpreter's Competition for Contemporary Music, Helen Bledsoe has had an active career as a soloist, ensemble player, teacher and improviser.

She has given masterclasses and workshops world-wide, and is currently an assistant instructor at the Conservatory of Bremen.

Since 1997, Helen has been a full member of the ensemble musikFabrik of Cologne, and has been a regular guest with many other European ensembles such as the Nieuw Ensemble, the ASKO/Schoenberg Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, and Ictus Ensemble. From 1999 - 2002, she was a member of the Remix Ensemble of Porto, Portugal.
Her regular partners in improvisation include: Marco Blaauw, trumpet, Alexei Lapin, piano, and Sue Schlotte, cello.

Her broad musical education, beginning age 9 with the harpsichord, has lead her to various places on the globe:
She earned a BA (Bachelor of Arts) summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied Early Music (traverso and recorder) and flute with Bernard Goldberg. She earned her MM (Master of Music) from Indiana University, Bloomington where she studied with Peter Lloyd and Kate Lukas, and attended David Baker's Jazz course. Post-graduate studies include an Artist Diploma with distinction from the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she studied with Harrie Starreveld - and studies in Carnatic (South Indian Classical) music with the late Jahnavi Jayaprakash in Bangalore, India.

Helen performs on a Kingma System flute.

Press Reviews
"The highlight of the evening (Heinz Holliger's Scardanelli Cyclus) was the flute solo from Helen Bledsoe in the piece (t)air(e): she played all the unusual effects, renting outbursts and crystalline motives with great virtuosity, impassioned and with a beautiful tone."
De Volkskrant

"From the first moment her enormous musicality strikes you, as well as her coloristic capabilities."
Entr'acte

"Bledsoe is spontaneous, dares to give, and how!"
NRC Handelsblad

"... her control of the instrument and virtuosity are beyond dispute."
De Volkskrant

"Helen Bledsoe, who played the hallucinating trills of Paolo Perezzani's L'Ombra dell'Angelo brilliantly and powerfully, ... played everything from memory, even Berio's famous Sequenza, and turned out to be quite a stage-personality."
Goudsche Courant

"She is a brilliant recitor of nonsense text, sings the Cagian vocalises [from John Cage's Song Books] masterfully, and has a good command of the family of flute instruments in all conceivable techniques."
Rheinische Post

(Review of the Hans Zender CD with MusikFabrik: 5 stars for interpretation and recording technique)
"Ein Hoergenuss der besten Art"
"Enjoyable listening of the highest sort"
Tilman Urbach, FonoForum, Dec 2001