Lillian Burkart, Sheryl Cohen, and Zart Dombourian-Eby to Receive Awards at the NFA’s 53rd Annual Convention in Atlanta, GA

 

CHICAGO – The National Flute Association (NFA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 Achievement Awards, which are given annually to recognize significant and lasting impact to the flute community and the NFA.  

The 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring accomplished luminaries in flute-related fields, will be presented to Lillian Burkart, flutemaker and founder of Burkart Flutes & Piccolos; Sheryl Cohen, whose performance and teaching career spans over fifty-five years and includes positions with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, the University of Alabama, and the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra; and Zart Dombourian-Eby, principal piccoloist (Robert and Clodagh Ash Chair) of the Seattle Symphony. 

Dombourian-Eby will also be honored with the NFA’s Distinguished Service Award, presented to an individual who has demonstrated profound, dedicated service and commitment to the NFA.

“Lillian Burkart, Zart Dombourian-Eby, and Sheryl Cohen are trailblazers in their fields,” says Jennifer Grim, incoming President of the NFA’s Board of Directors. “They have dedicated their lives to their work, setting the standard for our field. I look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements at Atlanta's 2025 National Flute Association Annual Convention.”

Achievement Award recipients are chosen following an open nominations process. A committee composed of NFA members reviews all nominations before choosing the year’s award recipients. A list of past award recipients is available on the NFA website. 

The awards will be presented at the 53rd Annual NFA Convention in Atlanta, GA at the Gala Awards Cocktail Reception on Saturday, Aug. 9th. Tickets will be available for purchase in the spring. 

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Lillian Burkart was born in Louisiana, moving shortly after to live in Beaumont, Texas. Her father’s career as a trumpet player and professor eventually moved their family to Madison, WI, and later Ohio. As a member of a musical family, Lillian fell in love with the flute at the age of 10. Her studies with Bob Cole led her to complete her flute performance degree at the Philadelphia Music Academy as a student of John Krell, long-time piccolo player of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Upon completion of her schooling, Lillian stayed in the Philadelphia area to teach at Settlement Music School.

Lillian fully intended to be a performing and teaching flutist; however, during her time in Philadelphia, she noticed that the local flute repair technician had an abundance of work, leaving him with no time to teach a protégé. As a result, she decided to pursue repair training at a premier Boston flute maker, starting first as a body maker and later mastering all elements of flute making. Eventually, overwhelming demand for a highly researched and newly developed piccolo caused Lillian to start her own company.

As her new workshop began to grow and Burkart-Phelan, Inc. blossomed, Lillian pursued further education in accounting and material science. Under Lillian’s careful direction, Burkart Flutes and Piccolos continued to add new instruments to its offerings. Often called the “first lady of flute making,” Lillian’s contributions to the technical advancement of the instrument and to process improvements has won her awards by the state of Massachusetts, the Worcester Business Journal and North Central MA Chamber of Commerce for Top Product Design and Innovation. She is a consummate advocate for the development of advanced manufacturing in trade schools, serving on secondary education advisory boards. The education of future generations of craftspeople, metal workers, advanced machinists, flute builders and quality testers has become Lillian’s current mission as she leads her company to serve the flute community of the future. In 2022 Lillian orchestrated the transfer of ownership of the Burkart Flute Company to its employees via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, ensuring the future success of its flute makers, bolstering pride and commitment to quality of the instruments, and preserving the Burkart Flute and Piccolo Company’s American ownership. 

Lillian is also mom to 2 sons, an avid pickleball player, downhill skier, gardener and ceramic artist in her free time.

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Sheryl Cohen’s career of over 55 years, began in 1967 as principal flutist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Toledo Opera Association, and flute professor at The University of Toledo, posts she held for five years before enrolling in Florida State University’s DM Degree program to study with Albert Tipton. In 1975, Cohen joined the faculty of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and as principal flutist with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra. 
 
Cohen has performed throughout the United States in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, in Atlanta with Thamyris Contemporary Ensemble in Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarron, in California at SongFest Art Song Festival, and at universities and regional flute festivals. Starting with concert tours in Asia in 1987, Cohen performs internationally throughout South America, Sweden, and France. 
 
Much in demand as a pedagogue, Dr. Cohen has taught classes throughout the U. S., in Asia, at the British Flute Society, France’s Marseille Conservatory, Sweden’s Royal College of Music in Stockholm, International Festivals in Orebro, and many Bel Canto Flute courses in towns throughout Sweden. In Latin America, Cohen has also presented masterclasses and Bel Canto Flute courses in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Cohen’s book Bel Canto Flute: The Rampal School, won the National Flute Association’s Newly Published Music Competition in 2004. The Flute Network hailed it as “one of the most rigorously organized, well-thought-out and creatively written pedagogical books of the last half-century.” A recipient of a Camargo Foundation Fellowship in Cassis, France, Cohen continues to research and write on the Marseille School of Joseph and Jean-Pierre Rampal.
 
From her first performance in St Louis in 1987, she has served the National Flute Association through performances, pedagogical presentations, and committees, including the tribute concert to honor Jean-Pierre Rampal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, presentation of the Tribute to Albert Tipton’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the memorial tribute concert to Alain Marion, and many others. 
 
Sheryl Cohen earned the BM and MM from the University of Michigan under Nelson Hauenstein, and the DM from Florida State University under Albert Tipton. She began studies with Jean-Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion in France in 1968 and studied the Rampal School curriculum and teaching methods at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris while on sabbatical leave. She also attended Marcel Moyse’s summer courses in Vermont, and during a sabbatical leave, studied Robert Dick’s extended flute techniques and compositions with him in New York. 

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Zart Dombourian-Eby is the principal piccoloist (Robert and Clodagh Ash Chair) of the Seattle Symphony, and is regularly featured as both a flute and piccolo soloist with the orchestra.  Her performances have consistently received highest praise from both critics and audiences: the Seattle Times review of her performance of Gunther Schuller’s Concerto for Flute and Piccolo bore the headline "It was a night for flute/piccolo artistry,” and described her playing as "spectacular" and "phenomenal.”  Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote that she “crystallized Varèse's  ‘Density 21.5.’”

A native of New Orleans, she received her B.A. and M.M. degrees from Louisiana State University.  After a year of study in Houston with Albert Tipton, she attended Northwestern University, where she earned a Doctor of Music degree under the tutelage of Walfrid Kujala, and also coached with Donald Peck.  Her doctoral paper, The Piccolo in the Nineteenth Century, represents the only extensive research ever undertaken on the piccolo in that era.  

Ms. Dombourian-Eby has performed on concert series and given masterclasses throughout the world, most recently in Slovenia, Italy, and China, where she performed the first solo piccolo recital ever presented in that country.   She has been a member of the New Orleans Pops, the Baton Rouge Symphony, the Colorado Philharmonic, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and has performed with the Chicago Symphony.  She has served on the faculties of the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University.

She was the founding editor of Flute Talk and is on the Editorial Board for the Flutist Quarterly.  She has been on the National Flute Association's Board of Directors and has served on a multitude of NFA committees.  She has been featured as a soloist, presenter, and teacher at numerous NFA conventions, was the Program Chair for the 2012 40th Anniversary convention, and served as President from 2014 to 2016.  In 2025, she will be the recipient of both the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Service award from the NFA.

She has commissioned numerous compositions, including two works for piccolo and piano by Martin Amlin, and sonatas by Gary Schocker and Levente Gyongyosi, and a chamber work by Ken Benshoof.  Her award-winning editions of the three Vivaldi piccolo concertos and the Teleman duo concerto are both published by Theodore Presser.

Ms. Dombourian-Eby can be heard in over 100 recordings of the Seattle Symphony.  Her solo CD, in shadow, light, is available on Crystal Records.
Photo Credit: Carlin Ma - www.carlinmamedia.com

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About The NFA

The National Flute Association (NFA) was founded in 1972 as a common ground for flutists to exchange ideas and inspiration and has expanded in the decades since to include a quarterly magazine, an annual convention, and a dynamic assortment of scholarship programs, commissions, and member-driven initiatives. Nearly 4,000 people from all 50 states and more than 40 countries are NFA members, including leading soloists, orchestral players, jazz and world music performers, teachers, adult amateurs, and students of all ages. With 25 committees and more than 300 volunteers and appointees, the NFA finds its heartbeat in its members, who keep the gears turning at full speed with their passion and limitless supply of ideas. The NFA values and celebrates the contributions of all its stakeholders and is committed to growing as a diverse and equitable organization.

More information is available at nfaonline.org.

About the 53rd Annual NFA Convention

Each year, NFA members gather for four days of recitals, masterclasses, workshops, competitions and more. The 2025 convention, themed “Unity & Universal Oneness” celebrates the unifying nature of the flute, and will take place Aug. 7-10, 2025 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta in Atlanta, GA. More information is available at nfaonline.org.

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