Born in the Chicago area, Kirsten Bendixen Mahoney holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. Kirsten has played with the Naples Philharmonic since moving to Florida in 1993. Other orchestras, with which she occasionally plays, include The Florida West Coast Symphony and the Southwest Florida Orchestra. Her previous positions were Solo-Horn with the Orquesta Pablo Sarasate de Pamplona, Spain, Principal Horn of the Fairfield Orchestra, Connecticut, and Third Horn / Associate Principal of the New Haven Symphony, Connecticut. Kirsten Bendixen Mahoney has taught privately since 1982, at the Community Division of the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut from 1987-1991, and at Edison College in Ft. Myers since 1998. She is presently teaching horn at the newly formed Bower School of Music at Florida Gulf Coast University. Her teachers include Eric Terwilliger, Paul Ingraham, Dale Clevenger and Richard Oldberg. Ms. Bendixen can be heard on Crystal Records with the Brass Ring and on ECM Records, playing the music of Keith Jarrett.