Byron W. Petty

Byron W. Petty, flutist, pianist, composer, and conductor, holds a B.M. degree in flute performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, studying with the renowned flutist Britton Johnson, and has taught at Roanoke College, VA and Southern Virginia University. He is currently a Lecturer in Music (flute) at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, where he has also taught courses in Composition and Musical Analysis as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music. Petty has performed as a flutist and concert/chamber pianist at many venues and universities in the Eastern U.S. and Japan. He has served as a judge for preliminary rounds of the International Bartok, Prokofiev, Kabalevsky Piano Competition held at Radford University, VA and for the Virginia Music Teachers Association Collegiate Piano Competition. Petty appears on several CDs performing on the modern flute and Baroque period 1-keyed boxwood traverse flute – available through PARMA Records, Navona and Ravello labels.

From 1995-2002, he was the co-founder and Conductor/Music Director of the Eurydice Community Orchestra of Roanoke, VA. As part of their 20th year Anniversary Celebration, he made a recent appearance with the orchestra conducting his wife, Dr. Shuko Watanabe-Petty in the Largo movement from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

Petty has served as Composition Chair for the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the College Music Society (1996-1998) and as Independent Composer Representative on the National Executive Committee for the Society of Composers Inc. from 2000 through 2002. Petty was selected as the Virginia Music Teachers Association Commissioned Composer for 1995 and has received commissions from the K. & W. Group Inc, Olin Conservation Inc, Department of Geology of Virginia Poly-Technical Institute, the Toho Koto Society of Washington D.C., Elon University, NC, and the Rockbridge Community Orchestra of Lexington, VA.

Traveler’s Tales, a CD of recent chamber compositions by Petty (2003-2006) is available through Ravello/PARMA Records, Amzon.com, etc. as a download. An enhanced CD, Tendrils, was released in August 31 2010 on PARMA Records’ Navona label distributed by Naxos Records as a physical product and download. His Mythical Moments for piano trio from the Tendrils CD also appears as the first track on The PARMA SESSIONS: a compilation CD featuring pianist Karolina Rojahn available as a download. Another CD, FELT, Striking Works for solo piano on the Navona label includes Petty’s Propuntal Displays for piano – released in February, 2015. A performance of Petty’s Quarks and Leptons for solo piano, played by Johnathan Chapman Cook, is posted on You Tube. Petty’s Extractions for solo piano, performed by internationally acclaimed pianist Martin Jones, appears on the PnOVA label titled American Piano Music Series Volume 2 – released 10/2016. The score and a recording with pianist Shuko Watanabe of Rhapsody for Armenia for solo piano (2016) is scheduled to appear in the May 2017 issue of the government sponsored on-line journal “Fundamental Armeneology.”