Trudy Kane was Principal Flute with the Metropolitan Opera from 1976-2008 and is Associate Professor Emeritus at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami where she taught from 2008 to 2019. She received both her BM and MM from The Juilliard School.
Kane spent her early career as a sought-after freelance musician, acting as a regular substitute with the New York Philharmonic, recording movie music and jingles with well-known studios, and substituting and touring with the Metropolitan Opera. Kane can be heard performing on many movie soundtracks including The Untouchables and the original Beauty and the Beast.
In 1976, Kane began her career at the Metropolitan Opera, and won the Principal Flute audition in March of 1977. She became the first woman in the company’s history to hold this title. Kane had a successful thirty-two year tenure with the Metropolitan where she worked with the world’s greatest conductors and singers.
As an arranger and transcriber, Kane has published a number of works for flute ensemble, flute quartet, and solo flute. These publications include transcriptions of Act 2 of Puccini’s La Boheme, Intermezzo to Act 3 of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, and Smetana’s Overture to the Bartered Bride; and flute quartets including Carmen for Four, Gossec’s Tambourin, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee, and the Final Trio from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. Also published are Cadenzas for W.A. Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D major and her transcription of Fauré’s Sonata in A Major Op 13.
She has recorded a solo CD, In the French Style, and can be both seen and heard in many of the Met Opera on Demand’s performances including La Boheme, Il Trittico, Manon Lescaut, and Peter Grimes.
In 2008, Kane transitioned to academia as Associate Professor of Flute at the Frost School of Music. She cultivated a very strong studio with many former students going on to major positions. Kane established the Frost Flute Ensemble which performed at multiple state and national music conventions. A champion of new music, Kane commissioned several pieces for the Frost Flute Ensemble including Thomas Sleeper’s Concerto for Flute and Flute Orchestra, Dorothy Hindman’s Mechanisms, and Lansing McLoskey’s que la tierra se partiópor su sonido. Thomas Sleeper’s Sonata for Flute and Piano and Valerie Coleman’s Matisseries for solo flute were written for her during this time. In 2015, the Frost School commissioned Ellen Zwillich’s Concerto Elegia for Kane. She premiered and recorded the work with Thomas Sleeper and the Frost Symphony Orchestra. She was the 2015 recipient of the Phillip Frost Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship.
Trudy Kane is a Yamaha Artist and is a 2024 National Flute Association Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree.