Amy Christensen

Amy is the Associate Teaching Professor of oboe and English horn at Iowa State University, where she also teaches Introduction to Music Listening to more than 500 undergraduate students each semester. She recently published a digital textbook and complete curriculum called Between the Notes: the Music of Your Life for use in high school and college-level music appreciation courses. Amy also maintains a very active freelance career throughout Iowa and is currently the principal oboist of the Ottumwa Symphony and has performed as Acting Principal and English horn with the Des Moines, Dubuque, Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Central Iowa, and Oskaloosa Symphonies as well as with the Des Moines Metro Opera. Before returning to Iowa to raise her four daughters, she actively performed with many ensembles in New England, including the New Haven Symphony, Wallingford Symphony, Bach Society Orchestra of Harvard, Lexington Symphony, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, North Shore Philharmonic, Melrose Symphony, Dudley House Orchestra at Harvard and the Harvard Summer Pops Band as well as the Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, Festival Orchestra, and Symphonic Band. She earned her Master of Music at the renowned Yale School of Music, where she was a student of the beloved Ronald Roseman.

In addition to her music career, Amy holds a Master of Library and Information Science from Simmons College in Boston. Her work as an archivist and librarian has taken her to the Harvard College Library, Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University, Boston Symphony Archives, Slide Library at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Worcester Public Library History Collection, and the Iowa State University Music Library and Parks Library. In her spare time, Amy enjoys spending time with her four teenage daughters, digging in the garden, watching and photographing birds and insects, remodeling her house, and traveling to just about anywhere with an art museum or a beach.