About April

Flutist April Clayton is active as a soloist, recording artist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher. She can be heard in performances regularly around the world. The former Professor of Flute at Brigham Young University in Utah, April now reaches students internationally through YouTube, masterclasses, and private lessons.

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April Clayton is in high demand as soloist, recording artist, chamber musician, orchestral player and pedagogue.

Performing and teaching Internationally

April has performed as soloist and chamber artist around the world: in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Zurich, Paris, Riva del Garda, Varna, Leipzig, Moscow, Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Granada, Vancouver, New York City, Reykjavik, throughout South Korea, Mexico and the United States.

For seven years, she served as director of chamber music for the European American Musical Alliance, working in Paris alongside members of the faculty of Juilliard, the Paris Conservatory and Ecole Normale de Musique, and other elite schools. She now continues her international performance and educational endeavors each summer through the Da Capo Alliance, a nonprofit educational organization she founded in 2012.

Award-winning soloist and recording artist

April presented her 2003 debut solo recital in New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as a winner of the Artists’ International Competition. She has performed as concerto soloist with several orchestras in Utah, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Colorado.

She is a Burkart Artist, and currently plays on a Burkart 998 Elite flute with 14k gold tone holes and platinum headjoint.

Her debut solo CD, Flûte Agréable, was released on the Crystal Records label in 2005. April’s second solo CD , Flute Horizons, is a collaboration with the BYU Chamber Orchestra featuring her as soloist in four concerti, two of which were written for her. Recently, she released two CDs (Garden of Joys and Sorrows and Big Sky) on the Bridge Records label with her flute-viola-harp trio, Hat Trick. Garden of Joys and Sorrows received a nod at the 2017 Grammy Awards when the trio’s producer, David Frost, won “Producer of the Year, Classical.” Hat Trick‘s CD was one of his nine recording credits for the year. In 2025, her flute and piano CD, Torrential Raindance, will be released on the Urtext Digital Classics label. On this most recent CD, she is flute soloist; three-time Grammy-nominated composer/pianist Miguel del Aguila collaborates with her in a program of his own music for flute with piano.

As a young flutist, April won many competitions, including the Jefferson Symphony Young Artist, MTNA and Cincinnati Philharmonia Concerto Competitions.

Chosen performer for premieres of new music

A dedicated performer of new music, April has participated in numerous world premieres. Flute Horizons features two new concertos written for her by Todd Coleman and Murray Boren. In 2008, she presented by invitation a highly acclaimed concert of premieres at Carnegie Hall.

Among four competition prizes received from the National Flute Association are two “Best Performance” awards for renditions of newly commissioned compositions. April received a Full Fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival as flutist with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. She toured internationally with the New Juilliard Ensemble, has performed in the Summergarden Concert Series at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, and in Lincoln Center’s Focus! Festival for New Music. She also performs her own compositions.

Integral member of acclaimed ensembles

April is a member of the Aspen Winds, a leading woodwind quintet in the Intermountain West. Currently, she is actively working with duo harpist Kristi Shade and duo violist Jeanne Mallow, both based in New York City. She recorded two CDs and performs with her New York-based flute, viola and harp trio, Hat Trick.

She has been principal flute with the Utah Chamber Artists since 2005, and performs with Ballet West and the Utah Symphony. She has toured as a guest with the New York Woodwind Quintet.

Formerly principal flute and concerto soloist with the New York Lyric Orchestra, April also played principal flute with The Jupiter Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, and at the Sarasota Music Festival.

Frequent Contributor to Flute Talk Magazine

The magazine which featured April in a cover story in 2009 also regularly published her articles and interviews. Her contributions included:

Cover Story: “A Conversation with French Flutist Nicolas Duchamp.” December 2017: 14-21.

Cover Story: “A Conversation with Denis Bouriakov.” July/August 2017: 10-12, 14, 16-17, 38-40.

“Taking Control of the Airstream.” Flute Talk Magazine, March 2017: 24-25.

Recognized student becomes honored professor

The Professor of Flute at Brigham Young University, April received tenure at age 31. In 2010, she garnered a coveted Brigham Young University Young Scholar Award, becoming only the second music faculty winner in its decades-long history. Presented to young BYU faculty, the award includes three years of generous grants and stipends. Dr. Clayton was also Woodwind Studies Chair at The Gifted Music School in Salt Lake City from 2014-2023. This is a remarkable Pre-College Conservatory and Preparatory program that regularly sends its young alumni on to study at schools including Colburn, Curtis, Juilliard, Stanford, and others.

April studied flute performance and mathematics as a National Merit Scholar at Oberlin College and Conservatory. She subsequently graduated with her BM (summa cum laude) and MM degrees from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. At The Juilliard School, she was a Starr Doctoral Fellow and the youngest student to have been admitted to the DMA program. She is a member of American Mensa.

Students garner recognition, move into valued positions

April’s students lay claim to many honors, awards, and professional positions. Current and former students have won National Flute Association competitions, including First Place in the Young Artist and High School Soloist Competitions, First Place in the Orchestral Audition Competition, First Place in the Piccolo Artist Competition, and several Winners in the Flute and Piccolo Masterclass Competitions. They have placed in other state, regional, and national competitions, including First Place in the Myrna Brown Competition, Music Teachers’ National Association Woodwind Soloist Competitions, San Francisco Flute Festival, and others.

Her students have been accepted into top undergraduate and graduate music programs, including those at Arizona State University, Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Brigham Young University, Colburn, University of Colorado at Boulder and Denver, The Juilliard School, London Royal Academy of Music, Longy School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, McGill University, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, University of North Texas, Rutgers, San Francisco Conservatory, University of Southern California, and University of Texas at Austin.

April’s former students have taught at BYU-Idaho, Snow College, Southern Utah University, and others. They have performed with orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony, Utah Symphony, Portland Ensign Orchestra, Salt Lake Symphony, Utah Valley Symphony, and Orchestra at Temple Square. Many maintain their own private studios across the country, and are leaders in their music communities.