A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have a week long gig with the American Ballet Theatre when they came through Chicago. The ballet was Giselle and it was beautiful. Or so I was told, you can’t see much from the pit. But you can read a review of the production by the Chicago Sun Times. The really special part about all of this is that I got…

I’m in Nashville playing Heldenleben this week. It’s a hectic time for the Symphony since Kenneth Schermerhorn, their music director of 22 years, recently passed away. The oboe section here is Bobby Taylor, Ellen Menking, and Rodger Weismeyer. The season after next, the Symphony will move into their brand new hall, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

Recitals can be fun, exciting, grueling and invigorating all at the same time. Here is a short clip from a recital I played a few years back. You can listen to it here. (It is fairly small but might take about 5 minutes to download on a dial-up connection.) What’s your most memorable recital experience?

Rachel Whipple wrote us with a funny oboe story the other day: Today I woke up very early to go to breakfast for Mother’s Day with the entire family. Afterwards, I thought it would be fun to practice my oboe outside for the first time this spring. The birds were chirping, the bees were humming, the dogs were barking, so naturally I thought that I should give my contribution of…