Our Team
Meet Arizona Philharmonic’s Executive Team, Board, and Leadership
Click title for details.
PRESIDENT: BARBARA METZ
Barbara Metz has had a varied career as a cellist and viola da gambist. She has performed with both the Phoenix and Tucson Symphonies and served as the principal cellist for the Saltmarsh Opera Company in Rhode Island. She specialized in baroque music performing with various ensembles and for many years served as cellist and gambist for the Connecticut Early Music Festival. She and her late husband John Metz, performed and led workshops on baroque performance practice throughout the US as well as published and recorded the six cello sonatas of the early American composer Rayner Taylor. Barbara also had a successful career as an RN in a Phoenix Trauma Center in. In 2004 Barbara retired from her position as Faculty Associate with the early music program at Arizona State University. She now resides in Prescott with her husband Mark Schufletowski, where she teaches cello, performs regularly with Arizona Philharmonic and among other things, tends to her gardens.
Barbara joined the Arizona Philharmonic board in 2022 and quickly became Personnel Manager. She became board president in July 2025.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: HENRY FLURRYClick title for details.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: ABBY COFFEY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: ABBY COFFEYAbby Coffey, Executive Director of Arizona Philharmonic, is a versatile flutist, piccoloist, music educator, and arts administrator in the Phoenix metro area. Abby joined Arizona Philharmonic’s executive team at the end of the 2022-2023 season.
As an orchestral piccoloist, Abby currently holds the Flute 2/Piccolo position in the Symphony of the Southwest, and performs frequently as a substitute musician with The Phoenix Symphony. She has also appeared with the West Valley Symphony, Nashville Ballet Orchestra, Arizona Opera Orchestra and Arizona MusicFest Festival Orchestra. Abby won first prize in the 2019 National Flute Association’s Piccolo Orchestral Audition and Masterclass Competition, and was twice a finalist in the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra’s Orchestral Solo Competition.
A supporter and advocate of music education, Abby is currently the Professor of Flute and Music Education Studies at Arizona Christian University, where she also teaches music history courses. Abby has been a preschool music teacher, the Flute and Oboe Teaching Artist at Arizona School for the Arts, and a general music and elementary band director in Mesa Public Schools, all while maintaining a robust, successful private flute studio. Because of her advocacy and dedication to music education, Abby has served on the Board of the Arizona Flute Society, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization serving flutists in Arizona. Abby has been a Board member of the AFS since 2017. In addition to serving as a Board member, Abby has also been the Committee Chair of multiple committees within the Arizona Flute Society, in addition to serving as Secretary and Vice President of the organization’s Executive Board for multiple terms.
A rural-Missouri native, Abby moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue her undergraduate studies. Abby graduated Summa Cum Laude from Belmont University with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education where she studied under Dr. Carolyn Totaro. Abby relocated to Phoenix, Arizona to further her education, and holds a Master of Music in Flute Performance from Arizona State University, having studied with Dr. Elizabeth Buck. Abby is currently completing a Core Certification Program in Arts Management through the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. When she is not obsessing over tuning exercises on the piccolo, grading papers, or planning concerts or outreach events, Abby enjoys spending time with her friends and family, taking her two dogs on walks, arranging flowers, or nicely coercing her husband, trumpet player Josh Coffey, to taste-test yet another homemade pasta recipe.
