Teodora Proud is a Serbian-American oboist, chamber musician, and educator whose career spans Europe and the United States. She is a founding member of Proud Duo, which she formed with saxophonist Joseph Proud in 2016.
Teodora is a Howarth of London performing artist, and plays on an XM oboe and XL English horn.
Born in Sarajevo and raised in Novi Sad, Serbia, she has performed with orchestras and ensembles throughout Europe and North America, including the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Connecticut Lyric Opera, Connecticut Virtuosi, Washington–Idaho Symphony, Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, Sarajevo Philharmonic, Camerata Academica Novi Sad, and many others.
From 2020 to 2024, Teodora taught oboe and chamber music at the University of Idaho. During that time, she was also Principal Oboe of the Washington–Idaho Symphony and a member of the Northwest Wind Quintet. She has presented masterclasses and worked extensively with young musicians at universities and music schools throughout the USA, and has also served as an adjudicator for woodwind competitions.
In 2016, Teodora co-founded Proud Duo with saxophonist Joseph Proud. Dedicated primarily to contemporary repertoire, the duo has performed by invitation at numerous international conferences, festivals, and symposia, including the International Double Reed Society conferences, North American Saxophone Alliance conferences, College Music Society conferences, and National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors conferences, among others.
Proud Duo has commissioned and premiered works by Jenni Brandon, Stanislava Gajić, Nansi Carroll, Ruby Fulton, Brian Kershner, and Filipe Leitão. The duo's projects focus on expanding the contemporary repertoire for oboe and saxophone and collaborating with living composers. A collection of these works is featured on their first album, Two Points of View (2023), released by Common Tone Arts in Seattle.
Teodora's discography also includes Balkan Soundscapes for oboe/English horn and piano with Eneida Larti (2024), released by Oboe Classics in London. She played Oboe in The Nansi Carroll Collection Project by Common Tone Arts.
She has performed at International Double Reed Society conferences in Tampa, Florida; Bangkok, Thailand; and Granada, Spain. She also presented a recital for the 2021 Double Reed Second Annual Virtual Symposium, for which she was a recipient of the 50 for 50 Commissioning Project Grant for Jenni Brandon's Places We Are From.
Teodora holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Oboe Performance from the University of Alabama, where she was a graduate teaching assistant; an Artist Diploma from Columbus State University; a Master of Music from the University of Belgrade; and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Novi Sad. She also studied at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as an exchange student. Her principal teachers include Dr. Mary Lindsey Bailey and Dr. Susan Hatch Tomkiewicz.