Dr. Cassie Lear enjoys performing chamber music, working with living composers, and the opportunities music gives her to meet new people and explore other parts of the country and the world.
Cassie is the Principal Flute of the Great Falls Symphony as well as Instructor of Flute at Pierce College. She has taught in Washington, Oregon, and Texas, as well as internationally in St. John, Antigua and Kolkata, India. She is currently on the board of the Seattle Flute Society, the Music Advisory Panel of the Seattle Young Artists Festival and has chaired the Seattle Flute Society Horsfall Flute Competition for the past seven years. She has performed with Helena Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Orquestra Northwest, the Lake Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, the Windsong Trio, other organizations in the Pacific Northwest.
Cassie is a past first place winner of the Seattle Flute Society Young Artist Competition, the Maverick Flute Competition, second place winner at the Mid-South Young Artist Competition and the Kentucky Flute Society Chamber Competition, an alternate winner of the Francis Walton Solo Competition and has won an Audience Choice award at the LaTex Electronic Music Festival. Cassie has also performed at the National Flute Association Annual Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Oregon Bach Festival, the International Lyric Academy in Italy, nief-norf Summer Festival, and has been featured on the soundtrack of two short films, several plays, and one feature-length horror film. She performed the Godard Valse with the Kolkata Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and G.P Telemann’s Concerto for Flute and Recorder in e minor in Seattle in November 2021.
Cassie released her first album, Resilience, with pianist/composer Steven Luksan in 2019 and her second short EP, The Last Rose of Summer: A Quarantine Project, was released online in 2020. The music she arranged for The Last Rose of Summer was published by ALRY Publications in 2021. Cassie has also arranged many works for flute/saxophone/French horn, including Haydn’s London Trio No. 1, portions of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, and W.A. Mozart’s Divertimento for Winds No. 1 in F Major. She has also composed a few short works for flutes and voice.
Cassie is devoted to her students, many of whom have won awards, competitions, and auditions including placing in the Horsfall Flute Competition, winning the Williams 1st Music Competition, earning distinctions at Seattle Young Artist Music Festival, and being admitted to the University of North Texas, Central Washington University, Western Washington University, and other institutions to study music.
Cassie holds a Bachelor of Music cum laude from the University of Oregon and a Master of Music from the University of North Texas, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Washington.
Performance Resume Curriculum Vitae