Shantanique Moore is a flutist and flute teacher. She is a recent Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra OPTAAM fellow and has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Toledo Symphony, and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, among others. (Learn more about her here.) She will be performing in the NFA Summer Series on Wednesday, July 8, at 7:00 p.m. CDT.

How do you like being a freelance flutist?
I enjoy that it offers a variety of ways to make music and with many different people as well as many different ensembles. For example, I perform with different orchestras in different states. That’s exciting! It's exciting to be able to travel place to place and to make music and get paid for it.

I also perform with a ragtime ensemble, which, I mean—who—that’s so rare! I was actually asked to step in and sub for someone in this group, and prior to that I didn’t really have much experience with ragtime. So this is helping me learn a different genre and a different style of playing, which helps all around.

In addition to that, I'm a soloist, which I really love. So we do a little bit of everything as freelancers, and it’s a lot of fun.

To be a freelancer requires a lot of drive. What has helped you stay motivated?
Staying on the audition circuit and constantly striving to get better so that I can perform with higher caliber orchestras—I don’t think I want to be a freelancer forever, so eventually landing that spot in a really great orchestra.

So having your eye on bigger goals?
Absolutely. And enjoying it. Enjoy it while you're doing it, and learn everything that you can. I started freelancing when I was in college and had the opportunity to perform with local groups, which was a great way for me to gain experience. No matter what ensemble you’re playing with, no matter how small it is or how good or how bad, frankly, use it to gain experience.

Enjoyment is a great point of focus. That can be easy to forget to do.
Yeah, because things get busy. In a weekend you might have an orchestra performance, you might have all types of things, but it's just like: Enjoy it; you could be doing something else, completely unrelated to music.

You talked earlier about how learning a different genre and style of playing helps all around. Can you expand on that?
Growing up, I didn’t listen to classical music. Growing up, I listened to rap and hip hop. I still listen to that; if I’m in my car, I’m listening to rap and hip hop. I think that by studying and learning different genres and styles, it helps you to find your voice.

And say, for example, you're asked to sub on a pop concert and you’re so used to playing Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart that you don’t know how to swing, you don’t understand, you feel uncomfortable. Allowing yourself to explore different genres and styles just enhances your artistic toolbox.

Do you have any tips for other freelance flutists or aspiring freelance flutists?
Number one is enjoy what you're doing. Number two is be a good colleague. Be someone who’s responsible and shows up prepared and has a good attitude. I think attitude should probably be first because if you have a poor attitude, no one is going to work with you, and you’re not going to get called back.

You're also a flute teacher. When teaching online, what helps you connect with your students?
I try to be extremely accessible to my students. We meet once a week, and I have them send me a video between the lessons and I give them feedback, so we communicate maybe twice a week instead of just the once. That helps us to stay connected and also keeps the momentum running.

You've been teaching online since before the pandemic hit. Do you have any advice to offer people for whom online teaching is new?
Experiment with different platforms; don’t be locked into one medium. Try FaceTime, try Skype, try Zoom. See what works best for you. Another biggie is to make sure that you have good internet. Don’t have the cheapest internet that there is. Invest in higher-powered internet. Another thing is, as hard as it is, try to imagine that you are in the space with your student. Ignore the fact that you’re talking to a camera, and set your focus on your student instead of the circumstances that you’re surrounded with.

 

What drew you to the Summer Series?
I’ve been to a few NFA conventions, but I’ve never been a performer [at them], and I thought, Why not? This is an amazing opportunity to perform. I love the NFA conventions, and I would love to be part of it for once.

What do you love about the conventions?
Oh, my gosh. I love the energy. I love learning, so I love just being immersed in all things flute. You can go from class to class to class and just sit there and learn. And then the inspiration you get from other people performing. You get to hear pieces that you'd never heard of, hear people that you’d never heard, and meet people that you’d never met.

That's great to hear. That's what the Summer Series is all about, albeit in an online format. What can you tell us about your Summer Series performance?
I’ll be performing Paganini’s Caprice No. 5, which is a very challenging piece. It demands the player to have a high level of technical and musical proficiency. It’s definitely a virtuosic show piece. And then to contrast that, I’ll be playing Ferroud’s Three Pieces for Solo Flute. I chose that piece because it allows the performer to tell a story. I find that in music we can get caught in the showmanship. Music is about conveying a message and connecting and being a storyteller, and the Ferroud—that's what that is.

What is one thing that has transformed your flute-playing?
Incorporating the Alexander technique is transforming my playing—the idea of releasing all unneeded tension and all unneeded effort. Just using what you need to be the best musician that you can be; not overdoing it or overworking.

What has been the biggest challenge in your development as a flutist?
My biggest challenge in my development is my mindset. I think that flute-playing has always come easy to me. I was just talking to my mom about this earlier, that when I was younger I had a very fixed mindset. I thought either you have it or you don’t have it, so for a long time I kind of skated on my talent. When I had a shift in perspective and a shift in mindset to a growth mindset, that is where I’ve been able to do better. You can’t skate on your talents; you have to work hard.

Another thing is just accepting the fact that I am a classical musician. Growing up, so many people expected me to play jazz or to play some other genre when I had never had interest in being a jazz musician. Classical—that’s what I study, that’s what I love. 

Accepting yourself and developing a growth mindset will transform you.

What helped you to do that—to accept yourself and not be bothered by people’s stereotypes or expectations?
I don’t really care about what people expect of me anymore. I don’t care. I think it just takes a lot of self-development outside of just being a flute player. And at this point I don’t really care what people expect. I'm doing this for me.

That's something a lot of us are working on.
It takes time. Anything that has to do with the mindset is a practice. We always have to remind ourselves of where we're trying to go. We're not just going to wake up one day and feel like we’re on the top of the world. It’s a process.

So being disciplined about not slipping into old thought patterns?
That’s right. One hundred percent.

How has your experience been as a Black flutist in the world of classical music, or in the flute community in general?
I never really paid much attention to the fact that I may have been one of the only brown or Black people in an ensemble. I've never put too much thought into that until recently, when I started to audition and try to land a job at an orchestra. You see the statistics. And auditioning for these diversity fellowships—the diversity fellowships would not be here if there were equal representation of people within the organization. So now I want to be someone who is sitting in an orchestra. I want my past self, 12-year-old Shantanique, to see me in an orchestra and say, “OK, well, that's cool. This is not just for white people. This is for everyone. If she’s in the orchestra, I can be in the orchestra too.”

Does thinking of it that way help motivate you?
It motivates me now. And it motivates me when I work with younger Black students. I’ve never had a Black teacher, even outside of music. And I don’t in any way express “I’m Black and you’re Black;” I never say that. I think it’s an unsaid thing that I just want to be there. I want to show up and be there for the younger generation, just so that they don’t feel alone.

Do you have any words of wisdom for young Black flutists or other flutists of color who might be on a similar path?
If you love it, do it with all your might. Ignore the naysayers. Ignore the people who say that the music isn’t for us. It is absolutely for us.