Principal flutist Dr. Pamela Youngblood has performed with the WFSO since 1976 and was a featured soloist in 1984, 1999, 2004, and 2012. She also has a long and distinguished career as a solo artist and chamber musician. She was named the Phi Kappa Phi Artist for 2016-18 by the nation’s oldest, largest and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines.

An active recitalist, Pam has been a featured performer at conventions of the National Flute Association in Minneapolis, San Diego, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, and Charlotte; the Texas Music Educators Association in San Antonio; and the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors in Lawrence, Kansas and Vancouver, Canada. She has also performed concerts in Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, England, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the United States (Boston) with the Metropolitan Flute Orchestra, a professional group based at the New England Conservatory, and the International Flute Orchestra.

Pam is dedicated to the discovery of contemporary works and seeks to expand the flute repertoire by highlighting significant works by new composers. Her widely acclaimed CD recordings Wind Song: New American Classics for Flute and Piano and Sparkle and Wit: International Treasures for Flute and Piano were released on the Azica label in 2010 and 2012. A third CD featuring works by California composer Peter Senchuk written specifically for her will be released later this year.

While she is most often a performer of classical music, Pam also enjoys other genres, including jazz. At age 16, she performed Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five” on one of the last Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour broadcasts from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York.

Recognized as a national leader in the area of flute choir, Pam is the founder and conductor of the TWU and Brookhaven (Dallas) Flute Choirs; both ensembles have commissioned new works by American composers whose premieres she has conducted at national conventions, including performances in New York City and Washington, D.C. She has also served as guest flute choir conductor for the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention and the Florida Flute Association Convention. She was thrilled to conduct 250 flutists in the 10,000 Lakes Flute Orchestra to begin the 2017 NFA convention in Minneapolis.

Pam is a professor of music and chair of the Department of Music and Theatre at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. She is also an accomplished organist and choir director who has been the music director at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church in Denton since 1976. In 2013, she was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Music, honoris causa) from Nashotah House Seminary in Wisconsin.

Pam’s husband, the late Jesse Youngblood, was a native of Wichita Falls and served as principal clarinetist of the WFSO from 1965 until his death in 1997. Pam is the proud mother of their two children Mark and Amanda, and the equally-proud grandmother of Max, Loretta, and Riley.