Lori started playing flute at the age of 10 and started piccolo at age 11 in the College Station ISD.  Her high school band director was Carl Idlebird.  She co-directed the summer flute camp Floot Fire Austin location for two summers.  Lori also teaches master classes to all age levels specializing in conquering performance anxiety, piccolo and etude techniques.

 

Lori comes from a long line of musicians.  Her mother, Pearl, sang in the Gustavus Adolphus College Choir and played violin. Her father played drums and piano.  Her brothers play percussion and guitar.  Lori’s great-grandmother received a degree in organ performance from St. Olaf College in Minnesota.  Both sides of her family are from Minnesota.

 

While in high school at A&M Consolidated in College Station, Texas she was invited to play with the American Band Ambassadors on a month long European Tour under the direction of Richard Floyd. She received many medals at region and state levels of solo competition which led to a college scholarship.

 

Lori attended the University of North Texas where she received a Bachelor of Music in music education.  While attending UNT, Lori focused her studies on baroque music and specialized on piccolo. She then continued her education at Texas Woman’s University where a Master of Arts was awarded in music therapy. 

 

As a music therapist, Lori worked at Harris County Psychiatric Center in the Houston UT Health Science Center.  Her career later took her back to College Station where she worked as a band director in Bryan ISD and taught numerous private flute students. 

In 2000, Lori decided she needed a change and moved to Austin. She worked as a high school band director at Dripping Springs and Crockett High School’s.  

 

Lori married James “Jamie” Maillart in 2002.  He played saxophone in Plano ISD while in high school.  He works for VM Ware in Austin. The Maillart’s enjoy their three young children.  Thier first child, Chester James Nathaniel, was born in 2003.  Chester studies piano and organ, swims for the Nitro swim team and races triathlons for Austin Multisports.  Their second child, Pearl Elizabeth Grace, was born in 2005.   Pearl studies violin with the Bluebonnet Suzuki Academy's Mr. Tim and is on the Capital Gymnastics Girls' Team. Their last child, Rose Marion Mercy, was born in 2008.  Rose also studies violin and does ballet and Irish step dancing.  Lori left the full-time rigors of being a 5A high school band director at the end of the 2003 school year to be a "mostly" stay-at-home mom.  All her children attend Sterling Classical School, a part-time private rigorous curriculum school, in Leander, TX.  When her children were very young she was a Kindermusik educator in addition to teaching preschool music at St. Richard's Episcopal School and St. Martin's Lutheran School while she kept a private home flute & piccolo studio.  

 

Currently Lori teaches flute & piccolo and is the life organizer and chauffeur to her three kids.  She teaches private flute and piccolo lessons from her home for students in Round Rock ISD and Georgetown ISD.  She also teaches on-campus lessons in Leander ISD at Vista Ridge HS.

 

In her "free time" Lori spends time with her two Poodles (My Lady of the 'Myst' and Snow), her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel ('Cai' of Camelot) and cat (Avalon).  Her hobbies include sewing for her girls, family genealogy and studying all things Brittish-Scotch-Irish from her Celtic ancestry.