Pamela Youngblood, DMA

Director, TWU School of Arts & Design; Professor of Music

Pamela Youngblood, DMA, is the Director of the TWU School of the Arts & Design, Professor of Music and a passionate flutist.  Her first CD, Wind Song: New American Classics for Flute and Piano, was recorded with TWU collaborative artist Gabriel Bita and released on the Azica Records label in May 2010.  Her second CD Sparkle and Wit: International Treasures for Flute and Piano was released on the Azica label in 2012.  Portraits of Richka: Flute Music of Peter Senchuk was released in 2022 and features several works written specifically for her.

Youngblood has performed internationally in Germany, Spain, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, England, Scotland, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and the Czech Republic as a member of the Metropolitan Flute Orchestra, based at the New England Conservatory, and the International Flute Orchestra. 

Youngblood has been principal flutist and a featured soloist of the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra since 1980 and was soloist in a performance of David Amram’s new concerto Giants of the Night in 2004 with the composer conducting. Other concertos performed with the WFSO include those by Jacques Ibert and Lowell Liebermann. An active recitalist, she has been a featured performer at conventions of the National Flute Association in Anaheim, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Charlotte, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Chicago, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors. 

Her current chamber music collaborations include the TWU Chamber Trio (flute, saxophone and piano) with Roy Allen and Ted Powell, and O.U.R. (Original, Universal and Relevant) Flute Quartet, comprised of the flute professors at Texas Tech (Lisa Garner Santa and Spencer Hartman) and TWU (Sam Hood and Pam Youngblood).  Both groups have performed extensively across the U.S.

Youngblood is the founder and director of the Texas Woman’s University Flute Choir, which she organized in 1994, and the Brookhaven Flute Choir, a Dallas-based, semi-professional group which she established in 1985. These groups have combined to perform at National Flute Association annual conventions in San Antonio (2024), Chicago (2022), Salt Lake City (2019), Minneapolis (2017), Washington, D.C. (2015), New Orleans (2013), Charlotte, NC (2011), New York City (2009), Albuquerque (2007), and Dallas (2001). Other performances include the Texas Music Educators Association annual clinic/convention and lobby concerts at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.  Youngblood has presented workshops on flute choir for TMEA, conducted a flute choir reading session for the NFA in Pittsburgh, and was the conductor of the 10,000 Lakes Opening Flute Choir for the NFA convention in Minneapolis in 2017.

As a researcher, Youngblood is dedicated to the discovery and performance of new or seldom-performed works for flute and flute choir.  Toward that end, she has commissioned several composers and has presented the world premieres of their new compositions.  Those composers include Peter Senchuk, Katherine Hoover, Larry Tuttle, Larry Ink, Kelly Via, Jonathan Cohen, David Gunn, and Paul Thomas for flute choir, Peter Senchuk for flute and piano, and two new flute quartets by Peter Senchuk and Zachery Meier.

Youngblood is an active member of the National Flute Association and served five-year terms as General Competitions Coordinator and Professional Flute Choir Coordinator.  In addition, she has served as the organist/choir director for St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, Denton, since 1976.

Youngblood received national recognition as the Phi Kappa Phi Artist for 2016-2018.  In October of 2013, she was awarded an honorary doctorate, Doctor of Music, honoris causa, by Nashotah House Seminary, Wisconsin. In November of 2014, she was granted the title of Lay Canon for the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, an honor bestowed in recognition for several decades of dedicated work in church music.  She also received the Advocacy for Music Therapy Award, presented by the Texas State Task Force of the Southwest Region of the American Music Therapy Association, in the spring of 2014.

At TWU, she has been the proud recipient of both the Mary Mason Lyon Award for junior faculty and the Cornaro Award, the highest award given to faculty at the university.  In 2019, she was also presented with the inaugural Distinction in Service to Student Life award.