Our concert programs must reflect the diversity of our world.
The Bassoon For All Project is dedicated to creating easily accessible recordings of underperformed works for solo and chamber bassoon, especially those by composers historically underrepresented in the Western canon.
About The Bassoon For All Project
I, like many other musicians in the United States, lost all of my musical opportunities at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. With no other avenues to perform, I started to record etudes and such in my living room to keep up my chops. During this time, I began to see other musicians recording themselves playing multi-track recordings and posting them on social media. I was inspired by their posts to make some of my own.
While researching other bassoonists’ multi-track works, I noticed that many folks were playing the most popular pieces for bassoon ensemble, which are disproportionately written by dead white men (think Michel Corrette’s Le Phenix). I had the thought- what if I sought out and recorded small bassoon ensemble compositions written by other groups? And living composers, whose new works cannot be safely premiered live during this time?
This led me down a rabbit hole of research. I was really surprised to find that bassoon chamber music works by even well-established composers like Thea Musgrave and José Siqueira had no recordings available on YouTube or Spotify. I realized that this little project of mine, intended to keep my chops strong and my reeds fresh during the pandemic, could actually become a valuable resource for someone looking for recordings of bassoon chamber music.