“Playing classical music by non-western composers expands our views as performers.  Music isn’t just something beautiful we experience in a concert hall but has the ability to connect us to different cultures outside of our own.”  

Her recordings include Spiritual Fantasy on the Albany label with organist Lucius Weathersby and Rhapsodies and Dances for Wind Quintet by Fred Onovwerosuoke, released in 2017 after a debut performance at the National Flute Association. Dr. Hymes holds BA, MM and DMA degrees in flute performance, music theory and arts administration from Principia College, Indiana University and Louisiana State University, respectively. Her principal flute teachers are Marie Jureit-Beamish, Jacques Zoon and Katherine Kemler. Dr. Hymes has served on the music faculties of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Jefferson College in Missouri, Louisiana State University and Arkansas State University where she served as Director of the Fowler Center. She currently teaches flute at Lindenwood University as well as at her private teaching studio. For more information on upcoming concerts, please visit the Intercultural Music Initiative’s website, www.imusici.net

Dr. Wendy Hymes is known for her definitive interpretations of standard repertoire from the Baroque era to 20th-century composers as well as new music. A passionate advocate for intercultural music for flute, her solo CD, African Art Music for Flute, features music for flute by composers from Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa which was also the subject of her doctoral dissertation at Louisiana State University. Along with performing, she directs the Intercultural Music Initiative Chamber Players, a mixed ensemble dedicated to performing music by diverse composers and serves on the National Flute Association’s Pedagogy Committee. Abroad, she has enjoyed performing at the 50-years of independence celebration in Accra, Ghana in 2007, Africa Sings Festival in Lome, Togo, the Festival for African and African American Music, and the International Symposium Festival for New Intercultural Music at the University of London. In the US, Dr. Hymes has been a featured performer at numerous National Flute Association Conventions, as well as the IMI Chamber Players, Chamber Project St. Louis, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Winter Opera, the Union Avenue Opera, and with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.