My oboe playing adventures

 

• In the early to mid 1970s  I began to play in a number of orchestras, such as the Upper Hutt, Victoria University, Wellington Youth Orchestra, and National Youth Orchestra in 1976.

 

• I also was engaged in some free lance work with the NZ Symphony Orchestra, and was briefly second oboe in the Wellington Regional Orchestra,  and also performed as a soloist with Scola Musica ( a very fine student string group) until I went to Dunedin for a year to play principal oboe in the Dunedin Civic Orchestra .

 

 

• In Australia,  I appeared briefly with the South Australian Youth Orchestra as Cor Anglais, under Maestro Georg Tintner ( a musician I worked with on a few different occasions),  and with the Adelaide Conservatorium Orchestra under Ronald Woodcock.

 

• In 1980 saw auditioned and was given a scholarship with the ABC Sinfonia  (the ABC Training Orchestra) under Robert Miller,  and  Leonard Dommett.   This gave me a great opportunity to play with some fine musicians and also some  casual work with the Sydney Symphony and the Queensland Symphony. When the scholarship finished I was a member of a little wind quintet (a sound extract I will put on the sound bytes page

 

• In 1990, after returning to New Zealand the previous year, I  resuming a bit of oboe playing, with various orchestras and chamber groups (The Canterbury Philharmonia,  Christchurch Symphony (as a casual player),  Da Capo (a chamber orchestra), North West Winds (a wind quintet)  and also Notturno  ( a Wind Octet), and taught a few students privately and at the Christchurch School of Music. 

 

• I am now practising hard, resumed lessons with Josef Hanic,  and have students in the MacArthur area.  I am also looking for performance opportunities on both oboe and cor Anglais.