Founder of Maine’s Winter Harbor Music Festival, Deirdre McArdle Manning is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music. Her teachers have included noted flutists Catherine Curran, Francis Blaisdell, Andrew Lolya, and Julius Baker.

Her formal solo debut was made at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and was well received by New York Times music critic Tim Page, who called her a ”…virtuosic flutist with an unusually rich and lustrous tone.” Her European debut was made at Wigmore Hall at the South Bank Centre in London where the Cadenza Society dubbed her ‘America’s answer to James Galway.’

As a chamber music player, she has performed with members of the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the American Symphony. She spent many years as a freelance orchestral player in Manhattan, most notably with the New York City Opera and the New York City Ballet. Currently she is principal flutist with the Orchestra of the 92nd Street Y.

Many successful professional flutists have studied with Professor McArdle-Manning, most notably Lady Jeanne Galway, Heather Holden, winner of the Haynes International Flute Competition, Alaunde Copley-Woods, and Nora Lee Garcia. Currently a faculty member of the Long Island Conservatory, SUNY Old Westbury, Ms. McArdle-Manning has served on the flute and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Bowdoin College. Composers David Loeb, Elliott Schwartz, Phillip Thomas and Daniel Paget have honored her with dedications of new compositions for the flute.