I just got back from a won­der­ful week in Oxford, Ohio for the 2012 Inter­na­tion­al Dou­ble Reed Soci­ety con­fer­ence. This was my third IDRS con­fer­ence, and the first one at which I actu­al­ly per­formed. The events took place at Mia­mi Uni­ver­si­ty, and our hosts were Mia­mi fac­ul­ty mem­bers Andrea Ridil­la (oboe) and Christin Schillinger (bas­soon).

Jazz Night with Michael Rabinowitz

The five days of the con­fer­ence were at once exhaust­ing­ly long and all too brief. I tried to pack as many con­certs, mas­ter­class­es, and pre­sen­ta­tions as pos­si­ble into each day. But as with most con­fer­ences, there were usu­al­ly mul­ti­ple things going on simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and I could­n’t make it to every­thing I would have liked to see. But some of the high­lights of the con­fer­ence for me were (in no par­tic­u­lar order) the top-notch evening con­cert per­for­mances by Jeff Lyman, Mar­tin Kuuskmann, and Dami­an Mon­tano; recitals by Sax­ton Rose, Maya Stone, Scott Pool, Car­olyn Beck, Richard Ramey, Michael Burns, and the UGA fac­ul­ty (Reid Mes­sich and Amy Marinel­lo Pol­lard); lec­tures by Richard Lot­tridge, James Kopp, Ter­ry Ewell, and Richard Meek; and both a mas­ter­class and jazz night with Michael Rabi­nowitz. (I’m sure I’ve left some peo­ple out — my apologies!)

Per­form­ing When the Pines Sleep it is Autumn.
Pho­to Cour­tesy of IDRS 2012

On Tues­day morn­ing, I per­formed André Previn’s Sonata for Bas­soon and Piano with Gabriel Sanchez, a very capa­ble pianist who I’d only met the day before. Then on Wednes­day, Nico­lasa Kuster and I pre­sent­ed a pro­gram of bas­soon duos: Music for Two Bas­soons by Alexan­dros Kalogeras, When the Pines Sleep it is Autumn by Bruce Reiprich (a world pre­miere!), and the sec­ond move­ment of Fran­cis­co Mignone’s Sonata No. 1 para dois fagotes. Although both per­for­mances were in a kind of out-of-the-way venue, we had decent-sized and enthu­si­as­tic audi­ences each day. In addi­tion to these two offi­cial per­for­mances, I had the great plea­sure of going on stage at the end of Michael Rabi­now­itz’s jazz mas­ter­class and trad­ing cho­rus­es and fours on “Can­taloupe Island” with Michael, my friend Trent Jacobs, and sev­en or eight oth­er impro­vis­ing bassoonists.

Mini ASU Reunion — with Ingrid Hagan, Ben Yingst, and Christin Schillinger

Aside from the offi­cial con­fer­ence events, it’s always great to recon­nect with old friends, col­leagues, and teach­ers, and also to make new friends. Where­as at last year’s con­fer­ence in Tempe, I most­ly saw friends from UW-Madi­son, this year I ran into peo­ple from my oth­er two schools. Rep­re­sent­ing FSU were my con­fer­ence roomie Brett van Gans­beke (who has just launched The Orches­tral Bas­soon) and Joe Volk. The ASU con­tin­gent was a bit larg­er, includ­ing Ingrid Hagan (who played beau­ti­ful­ly in the Gillet-Fox Com­pe­ti­tion), Ben Yingst, Ash­ley Haney, and con­fer­ence host Christin Schillinger.

As always, the pletho­ra of ven­dors pro­vid­ed ample oppor­tu­ni­ty for shop­ping and try­ing out new instru­ments. I played most of the his­tor­i­cal bas­soons offered by Wolf along with mod­ern instru­ments by Gebrud­er Moen­nig. I stopped by the Légère booth to have some adjust­ments made to my new syn­thet­ic bas­soon reed. I browsed the wares of many oth­er ven­dors, wish­ing I had more mon­ey to blow on tools, acces­sories, and music. My only actu­al pur­chas­es were books: James Kopp’s new his­to­ry of the bas­soon, a cat­a­log of the bas­soon col­lec­tion of the late great British bas­soon­ist William Water­house, and a cat­a­log of instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als for bas­soon up to 1900, assem­bled by Water­house and edit­ed by Kopp.

Play­ing Duets in the Day­ton Airport

My trip home was some­what of an ordeal, with an 8‑hour delay in Day­ton and an unplanned overnight stay in Den­ver. But while lan­guish­ing in the air­port I made some new dou­ble reed friends. With the help of a bor­rowed lap­top and IMSLP, a cou­ple of us even played a bit of Mozart’s Sonata for bas­soon and cel­lo, K. 292. As soon as we start­ed play­ing, the whole gate area went qui­et, and we got a hearty round of applause when we fin­ished. When we final­ly reboard­ed the plane, a few peo­ple thanked us for play­ing — had we known the recep­tion would be so warm, we would’ve got­ten our instru­ments out hours earlier.

After being home for a cou­ple of days, I’m final­ly recov­ered, and am already look­ing for­ward to next year. The 2013 con­fer­ence is just around the cor­ner, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Red­lands in South­ern California!