Recital videos, September 2025
I’m pleased to share videos from my recent faculty recital at Mississippi State University. The program was all unaccompanied solo works for clarinets and saxophones.
Here’s the program and video playlist:
I’m pleased to share videos from my recent faculty recital at Mississippi State University. The program was all unaccompanied solo works for clarinets and saxophones.
Here’s the program and video playlist:

Federal judge and oboist Diane Wood is reportedly under consideration to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
Wood has demonstrated a willingness to challenge her fellow jurists without offending, say lawyers and clerks who have observed her in court. Those attributes may be an asset as President Barack Obama considers her to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on an often-divided U.S. Supreme Court…
Wood, 59, who plays oboe in the Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra, was one of four people interviewed by Obama last year before he picked Sotomayor.
You can read the whole article at businessweek.com. Read More “Oboist on the Supreme Court?”
I’m pleased to share some audio from my Delta State University faculty recital a few weeks ago.The big event of the evening was the premiere of Sy Brandon’s Divertissement for multiple woodwinds and piano, which seemed to be well received. It’s gratifying to be involved in the creation of a piece that fills a gap in the small multiple woodwinds repertoire—something than can be played by a woodwind doubler, without having to bring in a concert band, a truckload of electronics, or obscure instruments. The audience seemed to enjoy the derring-do of the final movement, which involves six instruments.
I’ve studied the Bonneau Caprice en forme de valse in the past and have had students perform it, but this was the first time I played it in public myself. Since I’m trying to balance a half-dozen or more instruments, I tend to shy away from pieces that seem too technical, and, in that respect, this was the riskiest piece on the program. I was mostly pleased with how it turned out.
Read More “New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011”
Today makes ten years since I started the blog. At the five-year mark I did a little retrospective, and I don’t think there’s much need to do it again. Basically the things I was excited about and proud of then are the things I’m excited about and proud of now. Other than publishing my book, which grew largely out of this blog, it has mostly been more of the same: another 250 or so posts, another few hundred musicals added to the doubling list, new and updated web tools and resources for musicians, and of course lots of comments, emails, donations, and other happy connections with woodwind players around the world. I hope you will continue to read, engage, and of course make music.
A few weeks ago I put out a request for questions from my readers. I got some good ones, and here are some answers:
Check it out: Dutch classical saxophone virtuoso Arno Bornkamp has made five of his albums available for free download from his website. There’s a real wealth of repertoire here, and beautifully played. Did I mention free?
I don’t usually think of the double reed crowd as being terribly interested in woodwind doubling, but there were a number of doublers (ranging from amateur to professional) present at the IDRS conference this year. I know of these ones: Read More “IDRS 2008: Confirmed doubler sightings”
As of February 2020, I’ve made some substantial updates to my catalog of music written for players of multiple woodwind instruments: Music for woodwind doublers
There are a few pieces I have listed as currently being researched, mostly cases where I am awaiting responses from composers. And I now have a special section for pieces that, unfortunately, I believe to be unavailable. If you have any leads on these pieces, or can offer any other additions or corrections, I’d be very interested in hearing from you.
When I take a step back and look at the list, it’s surprisingly robust. There are works by composers and musicians of the stature of Samuel Adler, Georges Barrère, Irwin Bazelon, Thomas Filas, Clare Fischer, Ralph Hermann, Bernard Hoffer, and Claude T. Smith. There are an encouraging number of pieces written in the 21st century. (I also have a new commission in the works, which I’ll hopefully be able to share details about sometime in the next few months.)
A fair number of the pieces have significant obstacles to performing, such as a need for an orchestra or concert band, or electronics, or less-common instruments. But there are a good number that are performable with just woodwind soloist or with woodwind soloist and piano, and some are flexible about instrumentation.
I must imagine for a lot of composers the prospect of writing a multiple-woodwinds piece is something of a hard sell. There’s a very limited number of musicians capable of performing multiple-woodwinds works, and not every doubler plays all the same instruments. If you are interested in playing these kinds of pieces, I hope you will find composers to work with, and let me know so I can add new pieces to my list.