Author: finduilasplaysoboe

Oboe

Northwest Symphony Valentine’s Concert

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Northwest Symphony Orchestra’s second concert in the 2016/2017 season is our popular Valentine’s Concert. Highlights include a piece by Northwest composer, Roger Treece, and Sown Le Choi performing Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto. The concert concludes with Beethoven‘s wonderful 4th Symphony.

Friday, February 10th, 7:30pm
Highline Performing Arts Center

PROGRAM
Anniversary Overture,
Roger Treece*
Piano Concerto #1,
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
soloist: Sown Le Choi
Symphony #4,
Ludwig van Beethoven

*Northwest Composer

For more information and tickets visit http://www.northwestsymphonyorchestra.org/index.shtml
Oboe

Orchestra Seattle Handel’s Messiah Concerts

finduilasplaysoboe

Orchestra Seattle is performing two beautiful concerts of Handel’s Oratio Messiah this weekend–December 19th and 20th.  The Saturday concert is in Seattle at First Free Methodist Church at 7:30 pm.  The Sunday concert is in Everett at First Presbyterian Church at 3 pm.  I highly recommend these concerts!  I’ll be playing with some wonderful musicians.  Tickets are $25 general admission, students $10, youth under 17 FREE.  For more information see below:

http://www.osscs.org/concerts/2015_12_19

 

Oboe

Spokane New Music Ensemble Concert

finduilasplaysoboe

 

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I’ll be in Spokane, WA October 11th for a concert with the Spokane New Music Ensemble. The theme is New Music in Old Homes–a pastiche of old and new. I’ll be playing oboe music from the Baroque, as well as a new composition for oboe and electronics. And there will be additional new electronic music (without oboe, but just as good, I promise). Check it out: tickets are currently $12, at the door $15. Seating is limited. More info at: http://www.facebook.com/spokanenewmusic

Oboe

Albi’s Oboe

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A beautiful look at all the care that goes into creating an oboe.  And an interesting look into the thought process behind a professional player’s instrument choice.  Albrecht Mayer is one of my oboe heroes: a wonderful player.  Someday I’ll have to post the video of him playing oboe in a whale sweater.  It’s a true classic.  In the meantime–watch this one.  His comment about how different oboe brands each have their own ‘sound’ that the player must embrace is spot on.  I’m thinking especially of Loree, Laubin, and a few others.

Oboe

Just a Thought…

finduilasplaysoboe

If you want to be an oboist, I mean a serious oboist—invest in a good vacuum cleaner. And you probably want to have a room without carpet to make reeds in. Sigh, I don’t think I’ll ever get all the cane shavings out of my carpet. It’s a lost cause.

Ok, enough complaining. The good news is: all those cane shavings means lots of happy reeds in my reedbox!

Oboe

Planing vs. Pre-gouging

finduilasplaysoboe

This past week my new planer arrived from Ross. I fiddled a bit with the blade-originally it wasn’t really taking any cane off. But the mechanism was fairly easy to adjust, so now I have it set to shave off the sides pretty well. I’m sure I’ll be playing with it for a few more weeks. This first set of reeds is only tied on, I haven’t started the serious scraping yet.

I’ve come to prefer planing to pre-gouging. Last year, I was having some trouble getting a thin enough gouge with just pre-gouging. The sides of the cane were too tall for the gouger to process well. Thanks to my teacher’s input, I tried running cane through the pre-gouger and the planer which solved the problem. This year, I don’t have access to a pre-gouger, but planing alone seems to work. And it’s less time consuming without that extra step. There’s a little more gouging involved, but since I’m not a commercial operation, I don’t think it’s too much for my gouger to handle.

Thoughts? Pre-gouging, planing, or both?