Elizabeth Sullivan
Elizabeth Sullivan
Elizabeth Sullivan is the Associate Professor of Oboe and Musicianship at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is a passionate educator and performer dedicated to elevating others in all areas of music.
As a professor at Charlotte, Dr. Sullivan instructs at all levels, from advanced oboe classes to the rudiments of music. Her college students go on to pursue further graduate music studies, teach in middle and high schools as music educators, serve in leadership positions at non-profit arts organizations and freelance as teachers and performers. She additionally sees private students who regularly make all-district and all-state auditioned ensembles at the middle and high school level and go on to attend prestigious university-level music programs around the country.
Dr. Sullivan supports public school music teachers and is engaged in schools throughout the Southeast U.S. She was an adjudicator for both the Southeastern woodwind solo high school division at the MTNA Regional Competition and for the oboe middle school division at the Florida All State Competition.
She frequently presents at academic conferences around North America. At the National Association for College Wind and Percussion Instructors National Conference, she presented “Right Reed=Right Embouchure: Oboe Help for the Non-Reed Maker,” and she sat on the “Peer Review for the Performer” panel at the College Music Society National Conference.
Outside of the music field, Dr. Sullivan invests in first-generation college students. As a first-generation college student herself, she understands some of the unique challenges for this demographic. Her research in this area led to numerous conference presentations suggesting best practices for supporting first-generation college students in the applied studio on college campuses.
When she isn’t teaching, Dr. Sullivan is a devoted performer. She frequently performs at national and international music conferences such as the Music by Women International Festival, College Music Society regional conferences and SEAMUS National Conference. Regionally, she frequently performs with Opera Carolina, Charlotte Symphony and the Rock Hill Symphony.
She is a founding member of Trio Village, a chamber music ensemble that champions the works of women and under-represented composers by commissioning and performing new works and rediscovering older works. Trio Village has performed at national conferences around the U.S., including the National Flute Association Annual Convention, the International Double Reed Society Annual Conference and the College Music Society National Conference. As an ensemble, they work to educate audiences on the history of and importance of equity in the field of music. Trio Village received the distinction of third place in the American Prize Competition, Professional Chamber Music division and was a finalist for the Ernst Bacon Award for American music, chamber ensemble division in 2021.
Dr. Sullivan’s debut album, A Dramatic Journey: 60 years of Thea Musgrave’s Music for Oboe, was released on Albany Records in 2020. This recording explores the composer’s ability to create effusive, moving music for any medium, and reviewers found Dr. Sullivan to display “a great range of expression, control of color, dynamics and technical prowess throughout the CD.”
Dr. Sullivan studied under Ann Adams at Stetson University where she achieved her Bachelor of Music in Oboe performance. She continued her studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she completed her masters and doctorate studies in Oboe Performance, Pedagogy and Literature. While there, she was a student of oboist John Dee and recipient of the Bill A. Nugent Fellowship. Previous academic appointments include Eastern Illinois University and Daytona State College.
Dr. Sullivan lives in Concord, N.C. with her husband and two children. In her free time, she can be found tending her garden, caring for her chickens, or hiking in the mountains.