Dr. Jennifer Slater
Lecturer (Native American, World, and Film Music)
Office: Catlett Music Center 001
Dr. Jennifer Slater is a Lecturer of Music for Native American, World, and Film Music in the School of Music. Since 2013 she has taught freshman classes across campus focusing on academic success and the transition to college. She currently leads the Freshman and Transfer Orientation for the School of Music. In the Summer of 2017, she led a class of World Music to Puebla, Mexico as a part of OU Study Abroad. In the Fall of 2022, she was an inaugural instructor for the course, Ethical and Intercultural Leadership. She has been recognized as a High Impact Instructor for University College, an Outstanding Instructor for University College Seminars and in 2024 for Professional Excellence in the School of Music.
As a flutist, she has performed throughout the US, Canada, and in many countries across Europe including Germany, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, and the British Isles. She was the principal flutist with the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria from 2010-2018, and has been the Principal Piccolo for the Fort Smith Symphony since 2012 and the Principal Piccolo of the Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra since 2011. She has performed as a substitute Flute and Piccolo with the OKC Philharmonic since 2003 and the Norman Philharmonic since 2011. Dr. Slater is also the past Principal flute of the Symphony of the Lakes located in Warsaw, Indiana.
Before coming to OU, Dr. Slater taught General Music for three years at Independence Charter Middle School in OKC. She has also been an adjunct music instructor at the Boston Arts Academy, Oklahoma Baptist University, Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, and at Grace College and Theological Seminary in Warsaw, Indiana.
Dr. Slater can be heard as the principal flute on the 2023 Naxos Album with the Fort Smith Symphony playing the music of Louis Wayne Ballard, of the Quapaw Nation who was the first Indigenous North American composer of Art Music. She is also the featured Penny Whistle soloists in Patti Drennan’s 2024 Choral Album, Echoes of Grace: The Choral Music of Patti Drennan. Other principal flute recordings include the 20th Anniversary Album of Celtic Women (2024), and Aaron Lazar: Impossible Dream (2024). Her primary flute teachers were Nancy Stizza-Ortega, Geralyn Coticone, and Valerie Watts.
- DMA – University of Oklahoma, 2011
- MA – New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2023
- MM – Boston Conservatory, 2005
- BME – Oklahoma Baptist University, 2003
