We Three Kings
Karen Birch Blundell and Adam De Sorgo, oboes
EVERYONE needs a FLY Oboe Biker Boot. Right?
(I don’t see any mention who is playing piano.)
Marcello Oboe Concerto, Adagio
Eugene Izotov, oboe
“A Celebration of the Life of Ralph Gomberg”
February 4, 2007
Brown Hall, New England Conservatory
Enjoy! (And thanks to Bob Hubbard for this one!)
Yes … plural.
Very fun. (It appears La Api is easier to do this with than Mozart!)
Catchy work, too.
A suite for oboe and organ based on Filipino folk tunes, written by Alejandro Consolacion for the International Bamboo Organ Festival in 2009.
Performed by Franz Miguel Ramirez, oboe and
Alejandro Consolacion, piano on Aug. 13, 2011 at
The Philamlife Auditorium. U.N. Ave., Manila
Mostly I’m fascinated that there’s an “International Bamboo Organ Festival”!
Oops! I forgot to post the rest of the oboe photos yesterday when I said I would. So here they are now. Thanks, Lee!
Lee Hartman tweeted “ever play a Prestini model oboe with a thumb low-b key?”
Well, no. In fact the only thing I know about Prestini are the reed making supplies and oboe studies! So of course I had to google it immediately. You can read what Geoffrey Bridge has to say about their history here.
Lee also said he’d send me a photo or two … so here’s one. If I get more I’ll add them. Enjoy!
This morning I and at least one other oboist I know (hi Jillian!) received this email:
Dear Madam/ sir:
We make perfect wooden oboes.the price is $1280/each include shipping cost.please contact me no hesitate if you are interested.
B.wishes
[name and link removed]
My immediate reaction is, “Yeah, right.” The photos in the email made the oboe look plastic to my eyes. But of course I still had to investigate, as the name of the oboe was totally new to me. After all, I do dream of the perfect oboe. And the perfect reed. (And thin thighs, too.) I then did a google search on it to see if anyone else has anything to say about it.
I landed on an oboist’s site — a person I’d never heard of, but who had quite the bio on his own site (but nowhere else aside from Wikipedia, which could have been put up by someone he had do it). The site looked rather unprofessional and suspect.
Still, I replied to the seller. (No harm, right?)
Hello,
Did you want me to review this instrument for my oboe blog ( oboeinsight.com ), or are you just advertising to all oboists? (I sometimes get review requests, but your email is a bit unclear to me.) I would be happy to do so, but I can’t afford to purchase an oboe at the moment (although I have students looking for a new instrument). I never recommend oboes without being able to try them first, as you can imagine!
Just now I received his response:
Dear Patty:
Please contact [name removed] and visit his web site [link removed]
to know our perfect oboe.
B.wishes
[name removed]
You can guess, I’m sure, whose site I was to visit to read about the oboe! Yep. The same unknown oboist I found when I googled the oboe.
So … well … never mind! One oboist whom I’ve never heard of recommends an oboe I’ve never heard of. There is nothing else about this instrument anywhere. At. All.
I guess I just lost my chance at getting the perfect oboe.
Oh well. I get to pick up my not-quite-perfect-but-fine-for-me oboe from Mark Chudnow on Monday! I can live with that.
In case you don’t already know, I’m a huge fan of Albrecht Mayer. I have this feeling he could play absolutely anything on oboe (or d’amore or English horn) and I’d be in heaven!
I just purchased the “Voices of Bach” recording. You might want to as well! (I got mine through iTunes, but I’m sure it’s available elsewhere.)
If we believe that behind the universe there is a Creator who instills order, must we accept our destiny, whatever it brings? Does this make us believers or fatalists? They are fascinating questions, which in Western art find their closest expression in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
-Albrecht Mayer
(Quote found here.)
What a COOL video! Several friends on Facebook put this up today. I’d never seen it before. Probably because it was just put up on YouTube yesterday. Nice!
Yep … 6 months (or even a shorter amount of time) and I knew oboe was “mine”.
No one in my family played oboe, though. My mom suggested I move from flute (which my sister played) to oboe when I was between 6th and 7th grade. I started oboe during music summer school. (Our school district actually had a music summer school every year on one of the high school campuses. How fantastic is that?!)
Joe Robinson’s knife technique is so much different than mine when he’s scraping the length of the reed. When he’s doing shorter scrapes it looks the same, but I’ve not seen someone take their thumb off the back of the blade before. Do you others do that?
Anyone in the vicinity? You might want to check out this article by Mona Seghatoleslami as well as the website for Oboes on the Ohio.
Sérgio Azevedo: Bergerettes I for solo oboe
Tiago Coimbra, oboist
Until early August you can watch and listen to Aho’s Oboe Concerto for free. Or so I’ve read. I’ve yet to try it out, but I do hope to do so soon.
Here’s a bit of it from YouTube:
I’ve given up trying to play the Marigaux that I usually play. I guess it’s more than a broken trill key that is an issue; it just feels out of sorts to me. Or maybe the broken mechanism does cause other problems on the oboe. In any case, it’s not fun to play, so I’m back to the other Marigaux. The issue with that one is that it’s a much older instrument and the reed well is a bit smaller so some reeds simply won’t fit unless I shave away a bit on the cork of the staples and I’m not willing to do that. Sigh. See what a difficult life I lead? You never knew, did you?
I do wonder if this is the end of my main guy. It IS quite old, but I don’t really buy into the whole “played out” thing. Still, could it be that it’s just too weak to keep working on? Dunno. I DO know that if I had money to spare I’d give the Marigaux M2 a try. (No, I don’t have to have a Marigaux, but there’s a part of me that feels rather loyal to the make since it’s suited me so well for so long.
For now, though, I will deal with my other baby, and see if I can’t get some reeds that fit into it working. I just hope to hear from Mark Chudnow soon … and I’m praying he’ll be willing to take my oboe into his care as quickly as possible. (He’s a busy man.) If not … well … I actually am not sure what I’ll do about this.
