Flutist Master Sergeant Ellen Dooley of Boca Raton, Fla., joined “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in May 2005.

Master Sgt. Dooley began her musical training at age 10. After graduating in 1992 from the New World School of the Arts in Miami, she attended the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, earning a bachelor’s in music performance in 1996. She earned a master’s in music performance from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2002. Her most notable teachers include Jeanne Baxtresser, former New York Philharmonic principal flute; and Mark Sparks, St. Louis Symphony principal flute.    

Prior to joining “The President’s Own,” she was professor of flute at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania; flute instructor at the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C., and performed in educational outreach programs for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Choral Arts Society of Washington in Washington, D.C.

Master Sgt. Dooley performs with the Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra at the White House, in the Washington, D.C., area, and across the country during the band’s annual concert tour. She performed James Kazik’s orchestration of Michael Mower’s “Bossa merengova” from Sonata Latino as a soloist on the 2010 national concert tour. In addition to her musical responsibilities, Master Sgt. Dooley also serves as a coordinator for educational outreach, as well as for auditions in the Marine Band.