Letters from Leadership

In the news section of this issue of Flutist Quarterly, we’ve outlined all the initiatives that begin their cycles in the fall each year. Competitions, scholarships, online programs, and education programs are NFA member-led programs that connect the NFA’s flute community with the next generation of flutists, as well as each other. Our members’ willingness to share their expertise through these programs is an inspiration and a model of the best kind of membership organization.

Rebecca Johnson’s letter, her final missive as president, outlines everything she has brought to the NFA in her many years of dedicated service. Rebecca was vice president when I first came on board, so has been there for the whole duration of my time with you so far. I’m very grateful for her wealth of NFA and flute-world knowledge, her cheerful optimism, and her problem-solving mindset—not to mention the incredible hard work she’s done on behalf of both the membership and the organization as a whole.

The NFA’s structure as a member-led organization creates an interesting dynamic between the board leadership and staff leadership. The NFA’s executive director role is unique in the level of collaboration involved in leading the organization. This collaboration creates a bedrock for sharing knowledge, expertise, and ideas, as well as moving the organization forward. As Rebecca now takes a spot in the indomitable Past President’s Council, I look forward to working with incoming President Jennifer Grim and Vice President Francesca Arnone.

As we look ahead, the new strategic plan developed by a team of members led by Michelle Stanley will guide us toward accomplishing new goals of organizational stability and membership growth, engagement, and diversity through 2027. NFA conventions, as always, will consume a large portion of our attention and resources as we work with each program chair team to facilitate their artistic vision of creating an event that is musically breathtaking and expansive while at the same time reflecting our inclusiveness goals for the future.

Transitions are constant at the NFA. A warm thank-you to Rebecca and all of the others who are completing their terms this October. And to all those stepping up in November—I look forward to working with you!

In just a few weeks, the NFA community will be heading to San Antonio for the 52nd annual convention—Flauta Mundi: Global Voices of the Flute. As always, the NFA staff will be joined by committee chairs and appointees in the enormous effort to make sure the huge array of components of the convention go off without a hitch.

Aside from the tireless and creative planning of our artistic team, Program Chair Alberto Almarza and Assistant Program Chair Sarah Shin, committees and volunteers have laid the groundwork for their sessions and concerts over a period of months and years. The New Music Advisory Committee’s commissioning program, for example, awarded commissions to three composers to write pieces for the Young Artists, High School, and Piccolo competitions as early as December 2022. These new works are performed in a dedicated program as well as during the competitions. Planning for this year’s Youth Flute Day, with more than 200 local students participating, has involved months in the planning by the Youth Engagement Committee.

And when the convention is over and we’ve taken a breath, our committees and staff focus on what comes next. While our new program chair team digs into 2025 convention planning, we begin work with the 2026 team and confirm venues for 2027 and 2028 conventions. We also get to work on all the non-convention-related programs that make the NFA a year-round organization.

Our two education programs, the Lessons Scholarship Program and the Young Artists Mentorship Program, will prepare for the next cycle of teaching, supporting, and mentoring the next generation of flutists. The next Online Events Series featuring free one-hour sessions created by flutists for our community will get underway. The 2025 NFA competition cycle will begin as more than 500 flutists review repertoire and prepare their recordings for the first round. Meanwhile, committees working in the fields of archives and oral history, performance health care, IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility), and many others will seek ways to enhance the lives of flutists, honor their legacy, and build our community for the future. (See a list of all the NFA’s committees here.)

As the 2024 convention fades from our memories, I hope you will stay engaged, get involved, and be part of the NFA’s history and future.

One of the topics I hear about frequently in my conversations at the NFA is the need for transparency. I’ve been thinking about what this means at the NFA as we work together to facilitate all the activities of our unique organization.

My first stop to clarify my interpretation was the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster, “Transparency is the bedrock of ethics. Transparency is an amalgamation of many important values that include honesty, respect, and responsibility.” The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as “A situation in which business and financial activities are done in an open way without secrets, so that people can trust that they are fair and honest.”

Putting these together, it becomes clear that when NFA members ask for transparency, they are asking for openness and honesty about how decisions are made, by whom and when, and they want to know that their voice is heard and respected. Whether this is about proposal acceptance, financial decisions, exhibit hall placement, board nominations, virtual event selections, competitions, and whatever activity involves a decision that impacts on our members and their goals.

To respond to needs for more transparency, you’ll start seeing messaging that aims to unpack some of the processes that keep the NFA’s activities on track, many of which involve a vast array of volunteers/appointees as well as our staff. You’ll see more information about how different things are funded and who is responsible for making them happen, such as a committee or appointee.

Rebecca Johnson’s piece in this issue of Flutist Quarterly, along with Alberto Almarza and Sarah Shin’s interview on the new NFA Monthly Cast, aim to show what’s involved in the proposal review process. My previous blog series and recent podcast interview on NFA’s finances unpack how the NFA’s money is spent, especially member dues and registration fees, and how the financial pieces fit together. Our podcast series is intended to give members a look “behind the curtain” at some key areas of NFA operations.

And while it has been said that the NFA can be bureaucratic at times, with forms to fill out and a review process for applications of every kind, I strongly believe that introducing structures that are the same for everyone who applies—whether it’s for a job, an internship, a nomination, or a proposal—create transparency and fairness.

Returning to our dictionary definition, trust is perhaps the most important key to sustaining a healthy organization where members feel that their voices are heard and decisions are made in an honest, fair, and open way. By increasing transparency, my hope is that we will build a more trusting community where everyone feels respected and that their goals within the flute and music world remain at the center of what we do.

-Jennifer Clarke
Executive Director of the NFA

When considering what I wanted to include in this last piece of writing as NFA President, I read the beautiful parting notes from Penny Zent, Joanna Bassett, and Kyle Dzapo. I also pulled out the piece I wrote for this column about the value of service, from my first note for Winter 2022, which was meant to inspire people to get involved, detailing the “how” of how one becomes a part of the NFA’s volunteer structure. What it didn’t include was a lot about how meaningful it can be to serve others in any capacity, through whatever part of our lives is most important to us.

For me, that’s been the NFA. In the last 17 years, doing what I could to improve the organization’s structure and capacity over many positions, serving the NFA has been a big part of my life. It has required me to have leadership skills I wasn’t always sure I possessed. It has taught me to expand the way I listen and think about how we might incorporate all of our constituencies in a meaningful way. It has allowed me to use my organizational skills and helped me to think about how I can most positively engage with other people. And, as Kyle Dzapo said in her note for the Winter 2018 Flutist Quarterly, ultimately it’s about the people.

This is a membership organization. Every decision we make, every time we think about how we structure an event or a process, it’s about how we can serve the NFA’s membership community most fully and well. We always want to be accessible and see how much of the flute-loving world we can serve, and the energy that goes into how we do that is thoughtful and careful. Everyone comes to leadership in this organization with different skills, but we try to cultivate teams that function well and help move us forward, toward whatever the NFA will become in the future.

From our progress over the last four years that I’ve been serving as an officer, here are particular points of pride:

• The board passed a new Strategic Plan this fall to cover 2024–27. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how the goals we’ve set are able to expand our reach and do more.
• We have had a successful period of rebuilding the NFA staff, led by Jennifer Clarke, which has created a sense of stability and commitment to consistency and process that the organization needed.
• We’ve really worked to get more new voices represented in the NFA, including a more diverse appointee and board and younger appointees, taking their first steps toward NFA leadership.
• Membership is growing again, basically doubling from where we were in 2020 when everything changed during the pandemic.

All of this work is because of the amazing people who dedicate so much of their time to the NFA, many of whom also finish terms at the same time I do, on October 31. Our outgoing secretary, Lisa Bost-Sandberg, has approached the last two years thoughtfully and with an excellent attention to detail, and our records are in a better place due to her work. Our three outgoing members of the Board of Directors have been engaged throughout their time, constant contributors to the cause: Thank you to Tadeu Coelho, David Houston, and Kim Scott Strickland for your three years of service.

Among our 75 appointees, we have five competition coordinators finishing terms this cycle:

Christina Condon, Sonja Giles, Yuko Hoshi, Sanae Nakayama, and Brittany Trotter. Committee chair Lisa Fahlstrom also completes her four-year term, and Blair Mothersbaugh finishes a term as the coordinator of the Myrna Brown Dine-Around.

Additional special thanks to the program chair teams from the last two years: Ali Ryerson and Deborah MacMurray in 2023, and Alberto Almarza and Sarah Shin this year. We had very different conventions in those two years, and that’s what makes the rotating program chair position so powerful. Thank you to all of them for their dedication to the organization and the flute community.

Being a part of this institution’s leadership trio (president, vice president, and executive director) has been a remarkable experience. Working with Executive Director Jenny Clarke over nearly four years has been transformative—her tireless work for the organization keeps us on track and moves us forward. And I truly admire the two powerful women with whom I’ve served as vice president and president: Penny Zent and Jennifer Grim. They each bring different life experiences to the table, but both have served with grace and care, helping our organization grow and evolve. As I hand the reins off to Jennifer for the next two years, I know that the NFA is in good hands and that her leadership will be just what we need at this time.

We might think of seasons as something inevitable, which just happen because of the rotation of the earth as it orbits the sun, nature claiming its influence on our lives. As this NFA season comes to a close, I’m left to reflect on the seasonal aspects of our professional and personal lives. This one has left a powerful mark on me, and I look forward to everything that comes next.

Throughout the nearly two years I’ve been writing these columns, I’ve tried to include some insight on NFA procedural items to increase transparency and help folks understand how different aspects of the organization function. We’re a large organization with many different segments, and each of us has become acquainted with the NFA through our own door—perhaps through a competition, presenting or performing, online events, flute choir, or accessing membership benefits.

We’re about to gather for our annual convention in San Antonio, Texas, in early August 2024. It will, without a doubt, be a celebratory four days full of high-energy presentations and performances, an opportunity to try new products and instruments, a social experience with friends old and new, and a way to be inspired for our future. San Antonio is a vibrant city full of diversity, culture, and natural beauty, and it will be a fantastic location to come together.

But why San Antonio? At this time, in the middle of 2024, we have our 2025 and 2026 contracts for convention venues signed. We are working on 2027 and 2028 and hope to have those finalized by the end of the year. We have to commit to locations fairly far in advance to secure lower hotel rates for our members and reserve the spaces we need. This also means, of course, that we can’t alter course easily later. We have a consultant who tries to research sites that will fit our needs and works with the NFA team to build a comprehensive proposal for our Board of Directors.

Important factors for site selection:

• Our ideal weekend is the second full weekend in August, still in the first half of the month. This is (hopefully) early enough to have students and professors still in summer mode but late enough to have people free from summer festivals and programs. The second choice is the first weekend in August.
• Regional rotation. We try to bring the convention closer to all U.S.–based flutists once every three to four years. This means that it will be hot much of the time, since a large portion of the continental U.S. is likely to be hot in August.
• Available space. The NFA requires quite a lot of ballroom space compared to the size of our convention, due to our propensity for giving concerts requiring large stages. Not all cities have a venue that actually works for what we’re trying to do or are interested in our business.
• Part of booking convention sites is a negotiation of many cost-related factors. We negotiate the discounted rate for hotel rooms, how many hotel nights our attendees will book, the fees for renting space, how much catering we’re committing to, and what we’ll pay for staff rooms.
• Comfort and travel factors. Will there be hotel renovations during our dates? What is the biggest airport in the area, and how challenging is it for NFA members to get there? Is the area walkable? Are there restaurants in the area? How many hotels are we committing to and how far is the walk from the hotel to the convention center?

This brings us back to San Antonio. It’s the seventh largest city in the US and the first time the NFA has been back to Texas since 2002. With the cancellation of the 2020 convention in Dallas, when looking at our next site to book in post-pandemic times, it was natural to try again for Texas. The organization had recently looked at San Antonio, but those plans fell through. For our 2024 needs, it seemed a great fit of location, prices, and amenities, and fulfilled the goal of bringing our convention closer to a different part of the country than it had been lately. Building up to this convention, we’ve had years of planning by our Program Chair Alberto Almarza and Assistant Program Chair Sarah Shin, careful local input by Rachel Woolf, hard work by the NFA staff, and the impact of all of the NFA appointees (Board of Directors and officers, competition coordinators, committee chairs, and other specialized positions). It takes a massive team to get everything ready for this year’s event. Hope to see you there for this annual celebration of music and the flute!

Being the program chair (PC) for an NFA convention provides a much different look at the organization. I was honored to serve in this position in 2019. The NFA appoints a PC—basically an artistic director with an added load of administrative tasks—to oversee an upcoming convention about two-and-a-half years in advance, which is when the creative juices start flowing. This gives the committee a year-and-a-half before member proposals are due to decide upon the theme, select an assistant program chair (APC), map out priorities for some of the headline performers, and think about ways to incorporate the host city into the offerings.

Then, in the fall of each year, hundreds of NFA members submit proposals to present at the following summer’s convention. We often receive 400 to 450 proposals—though the two most recent conventions in Texas (2020, postponed to 2021 and virtual, and the upcoming 2024) attracted more than 500. At the same time, the NFA staff sends the PC’s team a scheduling grid with many time slots already reserved for competitions and important annual events, as well as room restrictions that are specific to each convention venue.

Along with a programming committee of 8 to 10 people, the PC and APC go through all the proposals, collated by type of event, so everything can be compared by the way they will function in the schedule. Workshops are compared to other workshops, panel discussions compared to other panels. The performance proposals (a massive number) are evaluated and honed into programs that can all be fit into the schedule grid and number of rooms that NFA has rented.

After four months of painstaking evaluation, whittling down, and schedule juggling, people are informed of the results. Unfortunately, many proposals are denied, sometimes due to lack of detail or quality of the proposal and much of the time simply due to time and schedule limitations. The acceptance rate varies between about 33% and 50%—in a very high submission year like this one, it is about one-third.

Though many excellent ideas must be denied each year for space and time reasons (please try again in the future!), there are always things folks can do to improve the quality of their submissions. For starters, each fall there’s a helpful proposal workshop where the NFA staff and program chair talk through the process and the PC team talks about their programming priorities. We encourage you to attend!

In the meantime, here are some thoughts for you to consider as you craft future proposals:

• Proposals that adhere to the theme of the convention are especially attractive.
• When proposals seem incomplete (no repertoire listed, no personnel, or some combination thereof), they are less compelling when reviewed alongside those that are very detailed, and therefore they are less likely to succeed.
• It is important to submit a recording of you playing the actual piece you’re asking to perform.
• The recordings you have on your website cannot serve as the sound samples you need. When evaluating so many proposals, there’s not time for the PC to look through what you have on offer. Please link to the actual recordings the PC should consider, even if they are in a large list on your website.
• If you’re asking to play a newly commissioned work, you need to submit recordings of yourself and of the composer’s similar work. And, of course, make sure the piece will be ready in time.
• Proposals submitted on behalf of a committee should indicate how the session will help the committee achieve its goals for the benefit of the NFA community. Committee proposals that are performance-based and don’t directly advance the goals of the committee and organization are unlikely to be selected, as are those that lack detail.

As you can see, selecting and organizing a convention’s programming is a gargantuan task for the PC—but is ultimately a rewarding part of one’s life and career. When you’re there in person seeing an audience engage with the incredible number of moving parts that comprise each NFA gathering…it is amazing! When you see us saying say “thank you” to the PC team over and over again in person, in the program book, and on our media channels, we truly mean it—this is a seriously dedicated investment of time, resources, and love.

Each year, when the NFA calls for organizational nominations, we include a call for future program chairs. I hope this might help get you thinking about who might be an amazing addition to our PC roster. We’re looking for someone who is familiar with the structure of NFA conventions, well connected in the flute community, organized and detail oriented, and a visionary artist and phenomenal flutist. It’s a tall order, but we also all know these folks exist! We take this process seriously. You’ll hear news of the 2026 PC soon, and we’ll be looking for 2027’s in next winter’s nominations cycle. We’ll hope to hear from you!

-Rebecca Johnson
President of the NFA