Carlos Arturo Flores

1953 -

Carlos Flores, professor of music at Andrews University, retired in 2017 after forty-two years in Seventh-day Adventist education and teaching at AU since 1998. While at AU, he taught piano, music theory and music technology, and chaired the music department from 2006 to 2013. Flores had previously served as Vice-president for Academic Affairs at Atlantic Union College and chaired the music programs at Montemorelos University in Mexico and Antillean Adventist University in Puerto Rico.

Carlos was born in Mexico City, Mexico, one of four brothers in a musical family of five children. Like his siblings, he was given piano lessons beginning at about age six. When the family moved to Montemorelos in 1964, the children also learned to play marimba from a player who had come to UM as a student. The brothers and the student formed a marimba ensemble that traveled extensively in Mexico and the U.S. in the 1960s, all playing together on a large seven-octave marimba.

Flores came to the U.S. in 1971 to study music at Andrews University. He received a B.Mus. in 1975 and an M.Mus. in 1976 in piano performance, having studied with Morris and Elaine Taylor. He also studied theory and composition with Charles Hall and Blythe Owen and musicology with Hans-Jorgen Holman.

He completed a Ph.D. in music theory and related areas in musicology at the University of North Texas, where he studied music theory with Gene Cho, Benito Rivera, Robert Wason, and others. He also continued study on the piano and cello.

Flores authored Principios de Melodia y de Armonia, a music theory textbook published in 1994, available in both Spanish and English, and has written numerous articles on music. He has a special interest in developing materials related to the integration of music technology into the teaching of theory.

He was an active piano recitalist and soloist as well as a frequent lecturer, guest speaker, and writer. In 2008, he was one of six AU faculty members to receive the Daniel Augsburger Excellence in Teaching Award.

ds/2017

Sources: Biographies at the Andrews University music department website (2008 and 2012); Interview with Hector Flores (brother), 2008; “The Only Way to Live,” Andrews University Focus, Spring 2017, 16; personal knowledge.