Porter was born to Diana Joan and Richard Porter[3] and raised in Wilmington, Delaware.[2] She played both the flute, studying with Deborah Carter Smith, and trumpet until she was 17, when she solely pursued the flute.[3] Her parents were very supportive of her interest in music, often driving her to Philadelphia to attend concerts and rehearsals of the Philadelphia Orchestra.[3] She later attended the Juilliard School in New York City, where she studied with prominent pedagogues Samuel Baron and Jeanne Baxtresser.
She has received many prizes for her playing, including the Third Kobe International Flute Competition in Japan[4] which garnered her international attention.[5] She has been a prizewinner in the 2001 Paris/Ville d’Avray International Flute Competition and Alphonse Leduc Prize, 1984 New York Flute Club competition,[6] 1990 National Flute Association's Young Artists Competition[7], Artists International, Ima Hogg, and Flute Talk competitions. She returned to the Kobe International Flute Competition in 2005 to serve as the American judge on the panel.[2] Porter has given premieres of many works, including Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Elegy, Soliloquy and Finale for Flute and Strings, three sonatas of Christopher Caliendo, and Michael Daugherty's Trail of Tears,[8] which is dedicated to her.
She is active as a teacher and clinician throughout the US and abroad. She is the founder of the "Anatomy of Sound" website AOS-Wellness which features Porter and Movement specialist Laura Dwyer with contributing guests.[9] In addition, she has released sets of instructional DVDs through the Theodore Presser Company,[4] the ABCs of Flute for the Absolute Beginner,[10] as well as through the "Anatomy of Sound" workshop.[9] She is on the faculty of the Brevard Music Center, and MPULSE Academy at the University of Michigan.[11] In 2006, she was awarded the Henry Russel Award from the University of Michigan for "distinguished scholarship and conspicuous ability as a teacher."[5]
