Flutist Leone Buyse relinquished her principal positions with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops in 1993 to pursue a more active solo and teaching career after 22 years as an orchestral musician. A former member of the San Francisco Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, she has appeared as soloist on numerous occasions with those orchestras and also with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Utah Symphony, the Xalapa Symphony, the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Mexico City in Palacio de Bellas Artes, and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva. She has performed with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players throughout Europe and Japan, with the Tokyo, Juilliard, Brentano, and Muir String Quartets, in recital with Jessye Norman and Yo-Yo Ma, and at many festivals, including Aspen, Sarasota, Norfolk, and Orcas Island.

The only American prizewinner in the 1969 Geneva International Flute Competition, Ms. Buyse has presented recitals and master classes across the United States and in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Her solo recordings have appeared on the Crystal, Boston Records, Albany, and C.R.I. labels and she may be heard as solo flutist on recordings of the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and the San Francisco Symphony for the Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Victor, and Sony Classical labels. With her husband, clarinetist Michael Webster, she co-founded the Webster Trio, which has recorded for Crystal Records and for the Japanese labels Camerata Tokyo and Nami.

Ms. Buyse is the Mullen Professor of Flute at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and has also taught at the University of Michigan, the New England Conservatory, Boston University, the Tanglewood Music Center, and as a visiting professor at the Eastman School of Music. Her former students hold positions at major universities and in many major orchestras, including the symphony orchestras of Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Houston, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Charlotte, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Florida Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, the Adelaide Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

Also an accomplished pianist, Ms. Buyse served for two years as a collaborative pianist at Jean-Pierre Rampal’s summer master classes in Nice, France. An active member of the National Flute Association, she received the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the flute community worldwide at the 38th annual convention in Anaheim, California in August 2010. Ms. Buyse maintains a web presence at www.leonebuyse.com.


“…superlative solo playing…a treasure.”
—Richard Dyer, THE BOSTON GLOBE