Wherever the woodwind takes him

Guilherme Andreas, Peab '18 (GPD), is the type of guy who strikes up conversations with strangers on the bus or waiting in line. He'll talk about politics, psychology, human behavior, your kids. "I love listening to people's experiences and learning from them," he says. "And I'm very warm. I love to laugh, and I like to be with people." He also loves the flute, which he describes as one of the most expressive instruments. "By playing the flute, I'm able to communicate with people even though I'm not talking to them. It doesn't matter where they're coming from, what language they speak—music just goes through anything and touches anyone, regardless."

Born in Brasília, Brazil, Andreas started playing at age 12 when his church decided it wanted a flutist and assigned him the task. As a teenager, he decided to pursue it as a career. "I couldn't see myself not doing it," he says. "I couldn't see myself doing anything else." He spent four years as the principal flutist of the Brazilian Marine Wind Symphony while earning his bachelor's degree in flute performance and a diploma in chamber music, and then eventually moved to the U.S. for his master's. He says it would have been easy to go stagnant after joining the Marines—"I had a job; I was principal flute already," he says—but he feels this constant drive to push forward, practice, compete, audition.

Andreas was recently selected for the 2019 Global Leaders Program, a nine-month curriculum designed by 10 universities (including Johns Hopkins) to train musicians in not just music but copyright law, entrepreneurship, neuroscience, and anything else a "rising generation of change-makers in music" might need to know. The program will take him to Mexico and Chile to apply what he's learned in an international setting. "Music needs to go further than the concert halls and music schools," says Andreas, also the music director of GraceCity church in Baltimore. "Music needs to be a tool available to everyone, regardless of their financial or social conditions."