The reed trio "Avena" was awarded the first prize at the Concours International pour Ensembles de Musique de Chambre at Colmar, France in 1976; the competition in that year was for woodwind trios and quintets only. Members of Avena are Jan De Maeyer, oboe, Nestor Janssens, clarinet, and Luc Loubry, bassoon. All are Belgians and two of them are IDRS members.
Edo De Waart, conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and recently-named musical director of the San Francisco Symphony graduated from the Amsterdam Conservatory with honors as an oboist in 1962. He was immediately engaged as one of the principal oboists of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, but served on the orchestra's conducting staff at the same time. He soon discovered that conducting was his ultimate goal . . . as he commented in a New York Times interview with Stephanie von Buchau, "The oboe is fine; it's the reeds that kill you."
Ray Still, first oboist of the Chicago Symphony, presented a master class at the University of Oregon School of Music June 1723, that attracted approximately fifty oboists from ten states and Canada. The major sonatas, concertos and orchestral excerpts were studied by the class, coached by Mister Still. Twenty-three participants (selected by taped audition) performed for the class; other members observed. Daniel Russell of the Michigan State University faculty was accompanist both for the class and for Mr. Still's recital on the evening of June 21. Sonatas of Telemann, Poulenc, and Hindemith made up the program. One day of the class was video-taped, and will be available, after editing, for limited viewing. Tentative plans for another such class in the summer of 1979 are now being made. For information contact J. Robert Moore, University of Oregon, School of Music, Eugene, Oregon 97403. Mr. Still also gave master classes at Northwestern University in Evanston where he is a member of the faculty, and at the Aspen Festival in Colorado. His performances there included the Schumann Romances. His recording of this work and other literature, including the Poulenc Trio with bassoonist Milan Turkovic, will be released in 1979 on the Telefunken label. Mr. Still will perform the Strauss Concerto with the Chicago Symphony under Georg Solti in December.
Donal Henahan, critic for the New York Times, commenting on Heinz Holliger's performance of the Mozart Concerto with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in October, 1977
" Mr. Holliger, one of the world's undisputed virtuosos, played the Mozart sensationally but extremely well. Now and then it does no harm to hear the oboe played with such breathtaking grace and fluency."
The Mozart Concerto was also performed by John Mack with the Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel conducting, at the Blossom Festival on August 26 and again in Hong Kong on September 11 during the orchestra's tour of the Orient. Mr. Mack will play the Strauss Concerto during the current season with the German maestro Klaus Tennstedt. In a recent issue of the Cleveland Magazine, Mr. Mack was widely quoted. On the subject of orchestral pitch "If you want them to take you seriously, it's got to be the same A every time. It must have enough overtones to sound cheery and convincing. If it sounds too mournful, it will sound flat to some . . . and it's got to be a perfect 440 A, not 439, not 441 " . . . "You mean you can hear the difference?" "Hear it?" Mack is incredulous, "You can feel it in your lip!"
Franck Avril presented a recital in New York's Carnegie Recital Hall in October, 1977. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Yale University and is a member of the faculty of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Joseph Horowitz wrote in the New York Times:
"Knowing that Franck Avril recently won a bronze medal in the International Competition for Musical Execution in Geneva, it came as no surprise to discover that the young oboist is a fluent performer with a cultivated tone . . . in addition to being a skilled technician, he is evidently an imaginative interpreter with a lively ability to shape and personalize a phrase."
His program included the Telemann E Minor Sonata, the Britten Metamorphoses, the Schumann Romances, sonatas of Poulenc and Gordon Jacob, and the New York premiere of Pierre Metral's Soliloquies. Miles Fusco was the pianist.
Word has come to us from friends stationed at the Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, that along with works of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, the classical tape of inflight music used on the Presidential airfleet includes the first movement of the Bach Concerto in C minor for Oboe and Violin performed by Marcel Tabuteau and Isaac Stern with Casals conducting the Perpignan Festival Orchestra. It would seem that fine oboe playing is appreciated even in "high government circles."
Cornelia Biggers' article in the 1978 Journal was no doubt responsible for this contribution from a double-reed playing literary fan. Swift's Gulliver's Travels (Part III, chapter 2) includes this description of a banquet at the Lilliputian court . . . "The second course was two ducks, trussed up in the form of fiddles; sausages and pudding resembling flutes and hautboys, and a breast of veal in the shape of a harp."
Pamela Pecha Woods is the new assistant first oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra and the first woman wind player to join the orchestra. She was previously a member of the San Antonio Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. It occurs to me that she is the only woman oboist currently playing in the US "Big Five" major orchestras. She spent the summer at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina.
Oboists at the Grand Teton Festival in Wyoming this summer were Elaine Douvas, Robert Stephenson, and Patricia Grignet.
Henry Schuman performed the "disarmingly breezy Penderecki Capriccio, which might even be called an avante-garde pop concert piece" with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Lukas Foss conducting. This is an excerpt from Peter G. Davis' New York Times review of this concert in the "Meet the Moderns" series. Don Muggeridge performed the Capriccio with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic with the composer conducting at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall on February 6.
Peter Hedrick and Edward Gobrecht, professors of oboe and bassoon respectively at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York have agreed to edit a new column in these pages dealing with all aspects of oboe and bassoon reed making. Queries should be addressed directly to Professors Hedrick and Gobrecht at Ithaca College School of Music, Ithaca, New York 14580. A revised edition of Oboe Reed Making: A Modern Method by Peter and Elizabeth Hedrick has been published by Swift-Dorr Publications. The original book has been widely used by students, teachers, and professional players. The revised edition includes photographs by Elizabeth Hedrick demonstrating the reed-making process and the relationship between problems in finishing the reed and modern oboe playing concepts. For more information about this book, contact Swift-Dorr Publications, 17 Suncrest Terrace, Oneonta, New York 13820.
Andrew White performed the Mozart Quartet, K 370 and the Bach Sinfonia from the Easter Oratorio on the last concert (May 19) of "Andrew White Week" at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. The week featured Mr. White in seven lectures and two concerts. Now primarily a saxophonist, Mr. White studied the oboe with Etienne Baudo in Paris and was principal oboist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra in New York from 1968 through 1970.
Listeners to the Usti nad Labem Czechoslovak Radio station in the North Bohemian Region have been hearing oboes regularly. A motif from the third movement of Dvorak's Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53 is used as the signature tune for the station; it was arranged for three oboes by Jan Fryda.
Tafelmusik, an ensemble of young Canadians, made its Toronto debut on July 29. Members of the group are Kenny Solway, baroque oboe and recorders, Susan Graves, baroque bassoon, Dan Armstrong, baroque bass, and Elizabeth Keenan, harpsichordist. The artists have spent the last year studying baroque performance practice at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and at the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam.
Earnest Harrison, Professor of Oboe at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge was a guest professor from May 14th to May 28th in San Jose, Costa Rica at the Interamerican Center of Instrumental Studies. The Center was recently located in San Jose, Costa Rica by the Organization of American States. The purpose of the Center is to promote the training of instrumentalists between the ages of 3 and 24, to promote new ideas in methodology, to produce and select musical repertoire in progressive levels of difficulties, to develop music education programs for the formation of orchestral musicians, to give technical assistance and consulting services to other institutions interested in the formation of youth orchestras within the country or abroad, with special emphasis in the Central American Area and Panama.
Most of the students were on a beginning to advanced intermediate level: the faculty basically comprised of foreigners. The professor of oboe there is David Busch who was the first oboist to be awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at the Louisiana State University School of Music. He is also the principal oboist of the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of San Jose, Costa Rica. At his recommendation Mr. Harrison was invited to participate in the two week seminar-workshop on oboe. Participants included students and professors from other Central American countries in addition to Costa Rica.
In 1977 the courses in strings included Alexander Schneider, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson and Murray Grodner.
Earnest Harrison is principal oboist in the Baton Rouge Symphony and a member of the Timm Woodwind Quintet; he was principal oboist of the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, D.C., before joining the staff at LSU School of Music twelve years ago.
The Changing Scene . . . Robert Stephenson and Dorothy Darlington will begin their second season with the Savannah Symphony . . . Patricia Grignet has joined the faculty of Western Kentucky University at Bowling Green . . . Vance Reger will teach at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem . . . Julie Smith goes to the University of Wyoming faculty . . . Howard Niblock will teach oboe and theory at the Ohio University at Athens . . . S. Blake Duncan has been appointed to the faculty of the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Charles Lehrer presented a program of concertos on September 13 on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in a faculty recital. Assisted by pianists Peter Tanner and Albert Huetteman he performed the Handel G Minor Concerto, the Strauss Concerto, the JS Bach Concerto, BWV 1055 for oboe d'amore, and the Kalliwoda Concertino, Op. 110.
Evelyn McCarty's faculty recital on September 21 included sonatas of Handel, Poulenc and Dutilleux; she was assisted by Imelda Delgado, pianist. Both artists teach at Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, Texas.
Jean Barker Cantwell praises Florian Mueller in "The Revelation of My Musical Roots with Kudos to Maestros", a recitaletta presented at Point Lookout, Missouri on March 13 to over 300 enthusiastic listeners. "Recitaletta" is Mrs. Cantwell's coined word for recital music with commentary of a light nature, a program designed to satisfy the tastes of trained musicians and laymen alike. She performed concertos of Handel, Goossens, and deGrandval, the Milhaud Sonatine, the Gordon Jacob Sonata, and the Bozza Fantasie Pastorale. Showing her versatility, she also performed substantial works on the saxophone including the concerto of Glazunov and the Creston Sonata. She was assisted by Ruth Abbott, pianist. Mrs. Cantwell is a charter member of the IDRS and has served as an officer of the Society.
