Stephanie had always been interested in music. Stephanie grew up in Northern Colorado where she started playing piano when she was 4 years old. Her family took her to many local symphony concerts where she once heard Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, known in English as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. It starts with a stunningly beautiful flute solo. From that point, Stephanie was mesmerized by the flute. By the time she got to middle school, she started flute in 6th grade. Her school also offered an afterschool Orchestra program so she picked up violin to play in that ensemble. As Stephanie heard the different instruments up close, she wondered ‘How hard could it be to learn that instrument?’ Starting in 7th grade, she started picking up different instruments in the band to see how fast she could learn them.
In high school, Stephanie had learned violin, viola, cello, and bass and settled on playing string bass in Orchestra and flute in band primarily. In Jazz band, she played bass guitar, trumpet, and saxophone when needed. In Stephanie’s junior and senior years, she became the drum major of the school’s marching band where she led rehearsals and led the band during the football season half time show. During her time in high school, she auditioned and made all regional and Allstate band and orchestra performing groups. She also auditioned to march in the Rose Parade with the Band of America where she was one of just a few people selected from the state of Colorado.
She also sang in the school’s mix choir, show choir, and women’s choir. In her senior year, she was given the opportunity to lead the women’s choir as the conductor while also leading the men’s choir in warmups on piano. While voice wasn’t where her passion was in music, it was still a wonderful learning opportunity as well as more music groups to be part of.
Stephanie first went to the University of Northern Colorado to pursue Flute performance with a double major in Music Education. After the first semester, she decided to focus primarily on flute performance and added on string bass performance. She then transferred to Colorado State University to study under Dr. Michelle Batty Stanley where she graduated with a degree in flute performance.
Stephanie has a very eclectic taste in music. Stephanie got into playing Irish music and has played with a few local groups in the area as well as a group in California.
Stephanie also plays with a local guitarist, Colin Barley, where they play popular acoustic classic rock at business events, private parties, and weddings.
Stephanie currently plays with Mesa Caledonia Pipe Band where she plays Bagpipes and Scottish Snare. She actively competes at the highland games where she has taken first place in solo competition. She also competes with the band. In the Phoenix Highland Games 2023 and 2024, Stephanie kicked off the Highland Games while marching the entire pipe band out as a solo fifer.
It is a fun challenge for her to learn new instruments. Some new instruments that Stephanie has learned is the concertina, wooden spoons, Irish flute, otomotone, melodica, and theremin!
When Stephanie is not teaching or playing in her ensembles, she is either playing video games or arranging music for flute ensemble. She arranges music that isn’t originally written for only flutes to show that you are not confined by the stereotypical music that is normally played on the instrument. These arrangements can be found on her YouTube channel, Steph Pack Music.
