Spotlight | Principal Flute, Marylou and John Dodds Turner Chair

Michael Gordon

Michael Gordon joined the Kansas City Symphony as principal flute in 2007. Since that time, he has worked actively throughout the region to promote the value of music in the community. In particular, he has collaborated with Arts in Prison to produce a series of chamber music concerts for inmates at Lansing Correctional Facility. He also serves as a board member for the Northeast Community Center that operates a tuition-free music education program for underprivileged children called Harmony Project KC. An active teacher and performer, Gordon has given numerous masterclasses and recitals in Kansas City, as well as around Missouri and nearby Kansas. Before moving to Kansas City, Gordon was a member of the New World Symphony where he also performed as a soloist in 2007. He has performed with several orchestras across the United States including the St. Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony. He has performed as both an orchestral and chamber musician at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, the Aspen Music Festival, Arizona Music Fest, and most recently at Kansas City’s own Summerfest. Gordon is a native of Glocester, Rhode Island, and he spent his formative years studying flute with Marianne Gedigian (current professor of flute at the University of Texas, Austin) and playing in youth orchestra and chamber music at the New England Conservatory. In 2004, he earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rice University where he studied with Leone Buyse. Gordon plays a 14k gold flute made in 2001 by Verne Q. Powell flutes.