Bassoon With a View

One of my main goals with this blog is to increase the amount of positive content there is on the information super highway regarding musicians and what we do .  At the same time, I want to share the reality of what it's like to be a musician specific to me - a women, a mom, a bassoonist, living and performing in a very unlikely locale.  Here follows a conversation that I bump up against a lot. BACKGROUND:   (Read this if you want to know what traveling musicians do.) Last week was my monthly residency with the Billings Symphony .  Every month of the concert season (September - April) I spend 6 days (Tuesday - Sunday) fulfilling my duties as principal bassoonist of this wonderful orchestra!  My compensation includes a per service fee, mileage, daily per Diem and housing. It's tricky because I'm already on the road a lot with the Chinook Winds.  Being a homeschool mom means that when I'm not around I either have to find someone to fill my shoes at home, emb

I am so excited to see that my posts on the Légère bassoon reed are getting thousands of hits! Not because I'm a bassoon narcissist (can such a thing even exist?) but because I believe deeply in these reeds.  I will share more about why I am promoting these reeds with such vigor but I want to immediately share the proof of how awesome these reeds sound, play, perform, and respond. The Chinook Winds were invited to film an episode of 11th & Grant with Erik Funk , a Montana PBS show.  We spent 9 hours filming an episode meant to bring a live show into the homes of residents of Montana.  We filmed the Maslanka Quintet in 1 take.  By the end of the day, we weren't so...accurate.  It was an amazing experience and we are truly grateful to Erik Funk and team for inviting us to be a part of such an incredible experience.  Here is the episode and this is what a Légère reed sounds like:  http://watch.montanapbs.org/video/2365652538/ Brief History of my experience with