[Dixielandjazz] Oboe - King of Reeds.

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

Very good article.  I majored on Oboe in college and played Oboe in the AF
band for a while.  I got my scholarship just warming up in the hall.  I
didn't even have a formal try out.  At that time I just didn't know that
high school oboe players were supposed to sound bad.  I had lots of musical
problems but a big sound wasn't one of them.  While in college I played with
the Cape Girardeau Symphony as well as the college band, orchestra and
Woodwind Quintet.  The part about pressure is real.  Oboe is the most
demanding horn I can think of.

When I graduated I could see no prospects for employment as a Oboe player.
At that time big salaries were not a part of Symphony work and here in St.
Louis the same two players held the job for years and years finally died in
the job.  I just couldn't wait and hope to keep the chops up.  I just
couldn't see continuing.  The practice regimen is demanding too.  It's a lot
like training to be a track star or other athlete.  You need at least 2-3
hours a day and that drove me nuts.  Just ask my wife how much she liked me
doing endless drills, scales and other practice.  I don't care what you
sound like you need a soundproof room or a deaf wife.

Yesterday I went to a music contest and there was a high school girl that
had the best sound of any H.S. player I ever heard including mine.  They
come along every so often.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 9:14 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Oboe - King of Reeds.


> 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."
>
>
>
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