Arts & Entertainment

Flutopia Honors Founder's Memory with Performance at Carnegie Hall

Daughter takes the reins of high school group with members from all over the region, including Ashburn.

An elite high school woodwind group in Northern Virginia, with several members from Ashburn, continues to make beautiful music in honor of its beloved founder, who died last year.

Judy Lapple, an accomplished flutist and teacher, first founded Flutopia 10 years ago. Judy was a professor of flute at George Mason University, had an extensive private studio of flutists and ran a well-known summer woodwind camp, where the idea of Flutopia was born. Flutopia’s members audition for their spots and come together for six hours every Sunday to rehearse.

Since Judy died suddenly in her sleep last August, Flutopia has continued under the direction of her daughter, Jennifer Lapple, an adjunct faculty member in flute at GMU who also performs in several area groups.

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“We had a meeting in September with all the parents and the students to decide the future of Flutopia,” Jennifer explained. “Unanimously people just spoke to the fact that they wanted to move forward and do this. Initially it wasn’t a role I felt ready for, but I guess that’s how things happen in life. I stepped into it and we all kind of moved forward together, slowly.”

Many of the members had been students of Judy’s for years.

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“[Jennifer Lapple] was the only person we wanted to fill her shoes,” said Caroline Henderson, a member of the group for the last four years. “No one else knew her as well or would be able to carry her legacy as well. We knew the group would be in the right hands and go in the right direction.”

“At the beginning when you would look up to watch [Jennifer] conducting you would look up and see dual people conducting because she has a lot of the same techniques that Judy did,” recalled Kat Lopes, a member for four years. “It took a lot of getting used to that it was actually Jenny up there.”

Directing the group has helped Jennifer as well. She calls herself lucky for being able to do it and says she now understands why her mom did it all those years.

“It has been a healing process in a way – to get up on that podium in front of those students and see in their faces a mix of anticipation and fear and sadness and also this hopefulness,” Jennifer said. “They’re so desperate, as am I, to keep alive what she started. That’s her legacy. It carries through into the music and it carries through into the experience as a whole.”

The group was invited to play at Carnegie Hall by Distinguished Concerts International New York based on a recording sent in of a group Judy directed last summer. Jennifer said that the Sunday, Feb. 20, performance at the illustrious music hall helped push the group to greater heights.

“When Carnegie Hall came up, it really motivated us and was that final push over the edge that we needed to keep moving forward,” Jennifer said.

The performance featured several of Judy’s favorite songs including October by Eric Whitacre and the overture to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. The program also included Eyes Wide Open, written for Judy by Flutopia member Eric Jackson.

Jackson originally wrote the piece last May.

“Judy’s had such a profound impact on my life,” said Jackson, a member of Flutopia since 2004. He originally wrote the piece for flutes and piano, in a major-minor-major pattern.

“That was supposed to represent how students came to Judy with tons of things outside of school whether it was familial problems or relationship problems,” Jackson said. “Whenever you talked to Judy it always seemed to get better.”

The piece was played with flutes and piano at the second of two memorial concerts in honor of Judy last semester. He recently revised it for a full ensemble.

“I realized that it wasn’t just Judy’s students that had this great inspiration and this warmth from Judy; it was everybody in Flutopia,” Jackson said. “I thought it would be more appropriate to incorporate all the instruments.”

Many of the members cited Eyes Wide Open as one of their favorites.

“When I conduct [that piece,] I’m just thinking about all the little things that go into it,” Jennifer said. “But every time I listen to it I’m just in tears- you can’t tell where his beautifully profound music ends and the way they’re playing it begins.”

Judy’s legacy will live on, in Flutopia, her students and the Judith Lapple Summer Woodwind Camp, where it all began.

“This was her idea. This was her seed that she planted ten years ago,” Jennifer said. “And I want the whole world to know it.”

Flutopia members from Ashburn include:

  • Alex Wang – Stone Bridge High School, Ashburn
  • Amy Wang – Stone Hill Middle School, Ashburn
  • Kyrsten Beretsky – Broad Run High School
  • Robert Wang – Broad Run High School
  • Sydney Blefko – Broad Run High School
  • Valerie Pagan – Broad Run High School 
  • Other members – Flutopia includes a number of members from Sterling, Leesburg and other parts of Loudoun County. A full membership list along with complete bios can be found on Flutopia's Web site. Not all of the bios included hometowns, so Patch apologies to any Ashburn students who are not listed.


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