Pamela Epple, a busy player in the New York area, performs regularly with the American Symphony Orchestra, Music Sacra, and the Philharmonia Virtuosi. She gave her formal recital debut in Carnegie Recital Hall on May 20, accompanied by pianist Cameron Grant and assisted by other artists. Her program included works of Francis Poulenc, George Rochberg, Charles Martin Loeffler, Rodney Rogers, and Mozart's Quartet, K. 370. Tim Page, writing in the New York Times remarked: "Her playing was at all times smooth, sweet, and elegantly tapered, and she effortlessly adapted to whatever material was at hand. A slight unease during shifts of register was the only apparent difficulty. Rodney Roger's Lessons of the Sky, in its world premiere performance proved a charming work that contrasts aquatic, repetitive figures for the piano with a songful cantilena for the oboe."
Allan Vogel, first oboist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, was guest artist with the Cleveland Baroque Soloists on June 5 at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art. Albert Goldberg, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said "the real star of the occasion was Vogel, for he is an oboe virtuoso with few equals and perhaps no superiors. His supple tone, his singing quality and variety of color, his facility, and his fantastic breath control mark him as an aristocrat of his instrument. His obbligatos were all they should be, and he dazzled in the Sonata in G Minor by Bach."
Anne Miller, instructor
of oboe at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory
of Music, has won the Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation national competition
in oboe.
The ADK Foundation gives the award in instrumental music every two years alternating with an award in the visual arts. The category for instruments changes every two years, with oboe the instrument for this competition. Tapes from approximately 50 entrants were judged by a panel of outside judges, and finalists played individually for the judges, said Elizabeth Schmedding of the foundation.
The award is for $5,000, which Miller says she will use to pursue a doctorate at the University of Illinois-Urbana.
Miller, who lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with her husband, Ross, received both Bachelor's and Master's degrees with high distinction and honors from the University of Michigan. She is a recipient of the Van der Heuvel Award for Outstanding Oboists. She has performed with the Kansas City Philharmonic, the Canary Islands Opera and the Houston Ballet. She also performs Young Audience concerts. Before her appointment at the conservatory, she taught at the University of Kansas, Northwest Oklahoma State University and the University of Michigan.
Douglas Boyd made his New York debut on January 19 at the 92nd Street Y. Tim Page wrote in the New York Times: "Douglas Boyd is one of the finest young oboists it has been this reviewer's pleasure to hear. Mr Boyd, the principal oboist and co-founder of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, grew up in Scotland and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He won the first prize for wind instruments at the 1980 International Young Artists Competition and has recorded the Bach and Mozart concertos with Alexander Schneider and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Mr. Boyd would seem to have it all - flawless breath control, a poet's sense of phrasing and an effortless musicality. Accompanied by the pianist Ian Burnside, he played music by C.P.E. Bach, Francis Poulenc, and J. W. Kalliwoda; a string trio joined him for a haunting performance of Britten's Phantasy Quartet. But the best playing of the evening came when Mr. Boyd had the stage to himself - in a performance of Luciano Berio's Sequenza VII for solo oboe, which combined squeaks, squeals and elaborate arpeggiated runs over a bagpipe-like drone. Mr. Boyd managed to reconcile the two disparate currents that run through most of Berio's music - experimentalism and a sunny lyricism. "
Barbara Knapp gave an all-English horn recital on February 10 at the Emmanuel Church in Boston, where she performs regularly. On the program was the Divertissement, Op. 39 by Bozza, Recitative and Rondo by Reicha, Koke No Niwa (The Moss Garden), Op. 181 by Hohvaness, Tientos by Surinach, and the Quatuor by jean Francaix.