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Hi! I'm Eva.
Starting from her debut concerto performance with the Dayton Philharmonic at age 17, Eva Elizabeth Skanse leads a career of playing, creating, and educating. She is the former principal flute of the Queen City Chamber Orchestra, a founding member of the Cincinnati Camerata Baroque and Silentwoods Collective, the artistic director of the Aurora Ensemble, and she currently serves as the executive director of the Lyra Baroque Orchestra in Saint Paul, the second oldest period orchestra in the country. She is the youngest to hold this position.
Praised for her "lovely singing tone" and "vivid and compelling characters," Eva has appeared as a soloist with orchestras such as the American Bach Soloists, the Queen City Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Napoletano of New York City, the Aurora Ensemble of Boston, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, and Lyra Baroque. She has performed with various modern and period ensembles including Opera Neo of San Diego, the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, Seven Hills Baroque, Harvard Baroque Orchestra, Madison Bach Society, Bach
Society of Minnesota, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Belgrade Baroque Festival in Serbia. She is the winner of the International Flute Symposium Young Artist competition, the David L. Pierson Concerto Competition, the Hamilton Stands Scholarship, the Hawkins Family Foundation Scholarship and the Early Music America Scholarship.
Eva founded the Aurora Ensemble in 2022, a period ensemble that specializes in historic Scandinavian music. Under her direction, the Aurora Ensemble has created over 25 modern editions of formerly inaccessible manuscripts, preserving these historic scores. In addition, the ensemble has delivered performances of 36 rare Scandinavian pieces including at least 5 “American premieres” of lost Nordic music--the first performances of these works on American soil.
The daughter of a pine tree farmer, Eva is passionate about wildlife and conservation, which led her to produce the project Midwestern Sky in conjunction with the Ohio Arts Council. This project consisted of a series of compositions for solo flute with nature backing tracks. Midwestern Sky raised money for the declining United States bat population and the fight against White Nose Syndrome.
Eva received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music studying with Randy Bowman, Heather Verbeck, and Demarre McGill. She was the Elise Coolidge Named Scholar and a graduate fellow at the Longy School of Music studying with Sergio Pallottelli and Na’ama Lion, earning two masters degrees in three years. Other principal teachers include Lindsay Leach-Sparks and Morrigan O’Brien-Kane.
Other than music, Eva's great loves in life are traveling, forests, books, black coffee and old things.
