Sparx Flute and Harp Duo with Joan Sparks and Anne Sullivan

Educated at the University of Delaware, and holding a Masters in Music Performance from Temple University, flutist Joan Sparks has enjoyed a career of musical diversity in the classical genre. For many years, she was a busy freelance orchestral musician: a regular substitute in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a member of the Delaware Symphony, the Bethlehem Bach Orchestra, soloist with the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra and the Performing Arts Society, and frequent performer with the New Jersey Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Chamber Music has been her focus for the last 15 years, as Ms Sparks and Anne Sullivan make up the flute/harp duo, SPARX.

Winners of many national awards, including the prestigious Chamber Music America Ensemble Residency Award, the American Composers’ Forum’s Performance Incentive Grant, SPARX was twice named winners of the National Flute Association Chamber Music Competition. SPARX has released three CD’s, has toured nationally, and has performed live web, TV, and radio broadcasts. Currently in residence at the Tatnall School, the duo presents its own concert series in Wilmington, DE as well as an annual summer chamber music festival. Ms Sparks was a student of Murray Panitz, the former distinguished principal flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has studied with Trudy Kane, the principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. She served as a tutor at the Stratford-Upon-Avon International Flute Festival, and has participated in several international master classes. She lives in Wilmington Delaware with her husband, three Labrador retrievers, two children in college, and is an active member of United States Masters Swimming.