Amelia Van Howe is a freelance oboist and English Hornist in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area where she is in high demand as an orchestral performer. She has performed with the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Symphony Orchestras, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, Westmoreland, Johnstown, York, and Butler Symphony Orchestras, among others. She is also an avid chamber musician and performs with the Windfluence Quintet.

Amelia earned third prize in the 2018 National Society of Arts & Letters Pittsburgh Chapter Music Competition and was the winner of the 2017 Duquesne University Concerto Competition. Amelia was also a finalist in the 2017 & 2014 Coeur d'Alene Symphony Young Artist Competition and the 2016 Naftzger Young Artists Auditions & Music Awards competition.

She has attended many prestigious summer festivals including Music in the Mountains, Music School Festival Orchestra at the Chautauqua Institution, the Madeline Island Chamber Music Festival, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the John Mack Oboe Camp.

In addition to performance, Amelia is passionate about music librarianship and has served as a music librarian for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Music in the Mountains, Duquesne University, and Three Rivers Young Peoples’ Orchestra.

She earned her Artist Diploma and Master of Music degrees in oboe performance from Duquesne University where she studied with Scott Bell and her Bachelor of Music in oboe performance from Michigan State University where she studied with Jan Eberle. 

Amelia is also a small business owner; managing her reed making business (Sunshine Reeds) which averages 200 reeds per month and provides high quality oboe and English Horn reeds to both amateur and professional oboists.

Amelia shares her townhome with her husband Roberto and their dog Xena. In her (very limited!) spare time she enjoys reading science fiction novels, solving word puzzles, and throwing rocks as a member of the Pittsburgh Curling Club.