A Journey of the Heart

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Geri Rizzo has had a successful and varied career which has taken her from orchestra pit to cool jazz to rock and roll.  

As a versatile freelance musician, Geri has easily performed different genres playing by ear as well as memorizing the classical repertoire through  her studies with Claude Monteux and traditional conservatory education at the New England Conservatory of Music.  It has afforded her the pleasure of meeting and playing with musicians from all walks of life verifying that music is indeed the "universal language".

Originally from the Hudson Valley, New York, Geri relocated to Margate, NJ in 2001 where she began performing in the Atlantic City casinos for special events in addition to performing in the Atlantic Pops Symphonic Band (15 years) and the Stockton Chamber Orchestra (8 years) as well as subbing with the Ocean City Pops.  In 2003, she started her own entertainment agency, Magic Flute Weddings, performing with South Jersey's finest classical musicians for weddings and special events.*

She has performed in the Tri-State Symphony (NY) and Fine Arts Symphony (NY); the Hudson Valley Wind Ensemble (NY); the Ocean City Pops, NJ; the Stockton Chamber Orchestra, NJ; the Bay Atlantic Symphony, NJ and the Atlantic Pops, New Jersey.  She has a special place in her heart for shutins and the elderly and has  performed in nursing homes and extended care facilities most of her life.

In February 2018 she performed at Carnegie Hall with the Atlantic Pops.  On the jazz front, she is active in the Jazz Vesper's Programs Atlantic City where she is a board member. 

As a teacher, Geri's students have become successful teachers and performers.  She is a member of the  Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia and the National Flute Association and teaches at Stockton University, Pomona, NJ.   Stockton is the home and chief performing residence of the Bay Atlantic Symphony as well as a mecca for many fine performing performing artists and offers an intensive and prolific music department!  In addition, it is most affordable.

Geri has always dreamed of a world devoid of hate and war and in 2016 she founded the flute ensemble "Flutes for Peace."  It seemed a natural evolution to make the move toward forming an ensemble of the world's most soothing instrument, a natural progression. In March of 2021 she was able to get Sir James Galway onboard to perform online for a Flutes for Peace Concert for the Ukraine held in Atlantic City, and hopes to continue to take forward as an international movement.

More information here:  www.FlutesForPeace.org 

Also a trained singer, Geri has performed in church choirs since she was a child.  She has performed in musical theater (Gilbert and Sullivan) as the lead in Iolanthe and in the Mikado at the Bardavon Theatre in Poughkeepsie, NY.   In Southern New Jersey, she has performed with The Meistersingers, The Cape Shore Chorale, and various church choirs as well as performing with various jazz ensembles. She currently sings in the professional church choir of St. Peter's Methodist Church in Ocean City, NJ, under the direction of the wonderful organist John Bates.

Geri is currently enthusiastically marketing a revolutionary flute cork replacement, the CE Invention out of Hungary, and is the first American distributor.

*Magic Flute Weddings has re-emerged after the covid epidemic to "Ambiance Chamber Ensembles".

Background

Geri Rizzo studied applied flute  at the New England Conservatory of Music Boston Massachusetts on a full scholarship where she studied with James Pappoutsakis of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She also studied with Francis Blaisdell, principal flutist with the New York Metropolitan Opera orchestra at the Manhattan School of Music in NY and is well versed in the classical pedagogy.  She began her journey as a flutist at age ten and by fifteen was studying with world class flutist and conductor Claude Monteux.   At 17 she toured with the NY State Symphony.  Other fine flutists of the Golden Age with whom she studied include Jim Walker and Julius Baker.  Gary Schocker was an amazing mentor when jumpstarting her playing after a ten year respite. 

Having worked in the corporate world while raising her two children, Geri put the flute aside for fifteen years and resumed playing once again at the young age of 40.  Her article, "Starting Over" published in Flute Talk Magazine addressed the issues and frustrations of beginning anew and gives inspiration and hope to others experiencing the same path. YOU CAN REINVENT YOURSELF!

"It's never to late to start over -- Life is too short to have regrets!

See the article below!

Geri Rizzo is a professional flutist and singer based in New Jersey, Director and Founder of  Flutes for Peace and American Distributor of the CE Flute Invention