Cindy Ellis, Flute
Flutist Cynthia Ellis is a member of Pacific Symphony playing solo piccolo since 1979 and frequently serves as principal flutist for touring ballet companies on their Orange County stops, including American Ballet Theater, Royal Ballet of London, Stuttgart Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. She was appointed principal flutist for the Opera Pacific Orchestra in 1993 and served in that capacity until the company’s closure in 2008. She has recorded with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Pacific Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as on several major motion picture and cartoon soundtracks.
Ellis is an active chamber musician, playing on Pacific Symphony’s Café Ludwig concert series, the Sonora Bach Festival, Fullerton Friends of Music and the Corona Del Mar Baroque Festival, among others. In March 2000, her chamber music trio, Les Amis Musicalles won the National Flute Association Chamber Music Competition. The group has performed on three national conventions for the National Flute Association (NFA) in Dallas, Texas, Columbus, Ohio and San Diego and went on to record and release a critically acclaimed CD “Beyond Beethoven” released on the Centaur label in 2006. She currently performs as a member of the flute and harp duo Arioso, with Michelle Temple and their debut CD “Petite Delights: Romantic Music for Flute and Harp” was released in May 2016 on the Centaur label. Her Trio with Jung-A Lee, piano and Pacific Symphony colleague David Chang, clarinet, will be the featured chamber trio at the MTAC convention to be held in Santa Clara, CA in July, 2021.
Ellis has received many honors including membership in Pi Kappa Lambda and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies, and was named as one of OC Metro Magazine’s "Ten Women Making a Difference" in 2002 for her work in the field of music education. She was appointed editor of Flute Talk Magazines monthly column, “Let’s Talk Picc” (all about the piccolo) in 2003 and was appointed to the NFA’s national pedagogy committee in 2007. Ellis served as program chair for the National Flute Association National Convention held in Anaheim in 2010. She was part of the teaching artist faculty at the International Piccolo Symposium in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2013 and has also lead masterclasses in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Most recently she was the piccolo teaching artist for the Redlands Flute Festival in May, 2019, and taught the Flute Panel Masterclass for MTAC’s first ever virtual convention in July, 2020.
in 2011, she was named music director of the Laguna Flutes, a 25 member flute ensemble which concertized throughout Orange County. The group was chosen to perform at the National Flute Association Convention in 2020, which was postponed due to the pandemic, and will now perform in Washington DC in August, 2021. Cindy is currently on faculty at Vanguard University and Saddleback College.
Ellis is married to Pacific Symphony’s trumpeter Tony Ellis, and they share their home with three rescued Labrador retrievers. In her “spare time,” she enjoys reading, cooking and fitness and has also taken performance driving coursework at the Mario Andretti Driving Academy with her husband.
Ellis is a Powell artist, playing a custom made 19.5K flute.