[Dixielandjazz] Oboe - King of Reeds.

[Steve barbone]

OFF TOPOIC - NOT OKOM - DELETE NOW IF MUSICALLY LIMITED TO OKOM

However, a fascinating read about the king of reeds. Wish I was younger
cause I'd polish up my Oboe skills and apply for one of those 8 vacant
principal oboe chairs at various US Symphonies. What the hell, they pay in
excess of $200,000 a year for an ill wind that nobody blows good. ;-) VBG

Randy Fendrick, do you double on Oboe? L.A. and San Diego Symphonies are in
need out you way.

BTW, if you read the article, it will open your eyes to some of the current
classical music scene, as well as to the difficulties involved in blowing
Oboe. It is IMO, the most difficult instrument to play well.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone 


February 12, 2005 - NY TIMES - By DANIEL J. WAKIN

Suddenly, 'Oboist Wanted' Signs Are Everywhere

Where have all the oboes gone?

More precisely, where have the principal oboists in the nation's leading
symphony orchestras gone?

The job - a critical one in any orchestra - is open, or about to be, at the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony.

In the latest departure, Joseph Robinson said this week that he will retire
as principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, one of the most visible
orchestra jobs in the country, after 28 years.

"This is a conservatory oboist's dream, to see so many openings at the same
time, with all the trickle-down effects of that," Mr. Robinson said.

But it can be an orchestra executive's nightmare. As John Mack, the dean of
American oboists, put it, "People are running around like headless chickens
saying, 'Where are we going to find people?' "

The lack of a permanent, full-time principal may not be readily obvious to
the concertgoer, accustomed to hearing the orchestra tune to the oboist's
pitch, a plaintive A. But the instrument has some of the most prominent solo
material in symphonic music.

Observers of the oboe world - which would mean just about no one but oboists
- say the sudden raft of openings appears on the surface to be a confluence
of health problems and retirements.

But there is also a generational change under way, as the recent musical
descendants of the father of American oboe playing, Marcel Tabuteau, who
died in 1966, leave the scene.

Tabuteau played in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1915 to 1954. Through his
teaching, he is universally credited with having created the American sound
and style of playing the oboe, a notoriously difficult woodwind instrument,
with its incessant hunger for carefully whittled double reeds, their two
faces lashed together, and its tricky fingering mechanism. As Tabuteau's
legacy recedes, the latest generation of players lacks distinction, some
suggest, slowing the process of filling all the openings.

Nevertheless, the prospects have up-and-coming oboe stars salivating.

"It's like a gift from heaven," said John Snow, an acting co-principal
oboist of the Minnesota Orchestra and a highly regarded player considered
ripe for a bigger job. "It's not going to happen again like this." Mr. Snow
said he might shoot for the Cleveland and New York openings.

The chair, obviously, will never go empty. Associate oboists, substitutes
and acting principals fill in, and they are generally superlative musicians.
A number of the orchestras involved have finalists for the job or are in the
middle of auditions. But some auditions have been dragging on for years. The
Cleveland Orchestra, for example, has been without a tenured principal
oboist since Mr. Mack retired in 2001.

Over the long term, musicians say, the void can affect an orchestra's sound,
internal culture and morale.

Changing any principal position can be subtly disruptive in an organism
whose artistic expression depends on years of playing together.
Personalities and musical profiles must mesh. The oboist is particularly
important, and is often seen as the pre-eminent woodwind voice (though
clarinetists and flutists may dispute that judgment).

"They are the principal fiddle of the wind section," said Paavo Jarvi, the
music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. "There is a musical and
moral authority that comes with the position." The principal oboist is often
seen as "the second concertmaster of the orchestra," he said.

The prominence of the oboe, one of the earliest winds to join the orchestra,
stems from tradition, the role of the principal player and the vividness and
intensity of the instrument's sound.

Mr. Mack recalled that when he joined the Cleveland Orchestra in 1965, its
conductor, the autocratic George Szell, leaned over his music stand one day
and said, "Mr. Mack, you are the leader of the woodwinds."

Delaying the appointment of principal oboists also delays the learning
curve.

"Being a solo oboe player, you are basically playing a concerto every
night," Mr. Jarvi said. "A new person will have an incredibly difficult 10
years in front of them, because everything is new, everything is exposed.
You have to have nerves of steel."

Given the pressure, it is remarkable that many principal oboists stay around
for several decades.

Mr. Robinson of the New York Philharmonic said that at 64, he "didn't want
to get into a position where people were whispering I should leave already."
He said he did not have the virtuosic reflexes he once had, adding, "Some
things were easier 20 years ago."

Elsewhere, the principal oboist in Los Angeles, David Weiss, retired in
September 2003. Richard Johnson, the Cincinnati Symphony's principal for 30
years, has been out most of this season with health problems, and he plans
to take over the vacant second oboist job and its relatively lower level of
pressure next season, Mr. Jarvi said.

In Chicago, Alex Klein, perhaps the most brilliant player of the younger
generation, developed focal dystonia in his left hand, a condition that
involves a loss of motor control, and had to leave in December 2003. William
Bennett, in San Francisco, contracted cancer of the tonsils, but he is
expected to return next season, said Rebecca Edelson, the orchestra's
personnel manager. San Diego is asking its acting principal oboist to take
part in new auditions, the music director, Jahja Ling, said.

In orchestras where there are long delays in filling the job, officials say
it is a matter of finding exactly the right fit - not just personality, not
just technical proficiency, but a match of the orchestra's sound and
tradition. Since Mr. Mack retired from the Cleveland Orchestra, one
potential successor departed after a two-year probationary periods, and
another is about to.

There is worry that despite legions of technically proficient players -
scores of them apply for openings - the pool of oboists with the right stuff
to be principals has shrunk. Professionals agree that the sheer number of
solid players has never been higher, although conservatories tend to turn
out relatively few oboists, given the instrument's difficulty. The
International Double Reed Society said its membership includes about 1,600
to 1,800 American oboists, both amateur and professional, and the College
Music Society Directory lists more than 350 oboe teachers and faculty
members at universities and conservatories.

"In any generation there are only a certain number of people who have all
the requisites for this type of position," Mr. Robinson said. "They must be
imaginative, persuasive, artistic personalities."

But some oboists see a darker motive, suggesting that orchestras try to save
money by keeping permanent chairs open and saving the benefits and the huge
sums that can come with a principal position. Principal oboists, precisely
because of their centrality in the mix, are among the highest-paid members
of the nation's major orchestras, where they can earn around $200,000,
roughly twice the orchestras' base pay.

"I think it's kind of morally wrong to ask people to train for the Olympics
again and again and then not fill it," said Elaine Douvas, one of two
principal oboists in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a veteran teacher.
"There are definitely enough intelligent, well-trained, technically
accomplished players out there who can fill the openings."