Sharon Sparrow recently retired from the flute section of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra after a prestigious 28 year career. While finishing her career as tenured Assistant Principal Flute, she has won the National audition and played the positions of both Second and Principal Flute, and can be heard on numerous recordings and broadcasts with the orchestra throughout her 28-year tenure. Beyond her career on the stage, Sharon is known nationally and internationally for her successful audition training method based on her book, “6 Weeks to Finals,” published by the Theodore Presser Company in 2016 and receiving a top publication award by the National Flute Association that same year. Sharon travels around the country as a frequent guest artist at many flute festivals and masterclasses clinician throughout each year, most recently for Carnegie-Mellon University’s The Consummate Flutist, the Philadelphia Flute Society, Ball State University’s Flute Day and The New Jersey Flute Society just to name a few. In 2018, Telemann for Two,Volume One—a collection of flute duets based on the Telemann’s solo fantasies she composed with colleague Jeffery Zook—was also published and released by Theodore Presser. Currently, Volumes One and Two are frequently performed and recorded all over the world by many different instruments. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sharon began a private online group entitled The Unlimited Flutist to form a sense of community for flutists around the world to train, collaborate, and perform. This quickly branched out to her current passion, theAuditionAdvantage™, a highly effective online program she began providing non-competitive and complete training curated for all musicians preparing for auditions. In 2024, Sharon joined rob’s inner circle as the first added coach in Rob Knopper’s highly successful International audition training program. During the summer, Sharon splits her time between theAuditionAdvantage™, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Strings Festival in Colorado, providing a perfect blend of performing and teaching opportunities—both of which she is equally passionate about.
Sharon received her Bachelor of Music degree from the prestigious Juilliard School and her Master of Music degree from Mannes College of Music, and credits her three major teachers, Julius Baker, Thomas Nyfenger, and Geoffrey Gilbert with her unending pursuit of excellence and love for the flute and music-making.