Tim Munro, flute

Tim Munro headshot

Tim Munro is a Chicago-based, triple-Grammy-winning musician. As a flutist, writer, broadcaster, and teacher, he treats audiences as equals, welcoming them into musical worlds with passion, intelligence, and humor.

Tim is the St Louis Symphony Orchestra’s Creative Partner. In this role he curates the SLSO’s series at the Pulitzer Foundation, co-hosts live broadcasts on St Louis Public Radio, writes articles and program notes, and presents onstage conversations. Tim is the flutist for the University of Chicago’s Grossman Ensemble and Principal Flute of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra.

Recent highlights include a collaboration with Wu Man, performances with Ensemble Signal and the Chicago Symphony, the creation of a transcription for live instruments of a work by Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Phillipsz. Tim also directed of large-scale, immersive works by John Luther Adams and Alice Chance in Brisbane, Melbourne, and St. Louis.

As a soloist, Tim is a “captivating”, “bravura”, and “charismatic” performer (The New York Times) who can deliver “a virtuosic tour de force” (Chicago Tribune). Tim was flutist and co-artistic director of Eighth Blackbird from 2006-2015. He toured the US and seven other countries with the band, premiering more than one hundred works, co-curating several festivals, working with musical heroes, and winning three Grammy Awards.

Tim is committed to large-scale, immersive projects that put listeners at the center of the musical experience. In 2017 he co-directed David Lang’s crowd out, which drew a choir of 1000 untrained singers from 43 of Chicago’s 50 wards. 

He lives in Chicago with his wife Julie, Artistic Director of Filament Theatre, their son Ellis, and their badly behaved orange cat. On a sunny afternoon Tim might dream of ghostwriting a memoir, of sketching landscapes, of writing a crime novel…