William Winstead, former principal bassoonist of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, dies at 77 For further details please click here.
Five-day Oboe & Bassoon Courses
***This event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.*** The BDRS is once again delighted to be promoting these two parallel courses for oboists and bassoonists, to be held at Park Place, near Wickham, in Hampshire, in April 2020. The…
Dartington Music Summer School
***CANCELLED*** Dartington Music Summer School are delighted to be joined by the hugely talented Magnard Ensemble, who will lead coaching and classes for wind players of both single and double reeds. There are organised sessions, and a great programme of…
Subscription Increase
Increase in Subscriptions from 1st January 2020 As advised in the cover letter of the last Double Reed News (DRN), subscriptions are increasing in January 2020 (not January 2019 as stated in error). Both Standard and Student annual subscription rates…
Memorial for John Whitfield
A Memorial Celebration for John Whitfield Many of you will have known and worked with John Whitfield – alongside him as an extraordinary bassoonist, or under his baton in one of the many outstandingly creative events he led from the…
Sound Festival Scotland
BDRS supported the 2019 Sound Festival, an annual festival in North East Scotland which aims to highlight contemporary music. In 2019 the event showcased the oboe as part of its focus on “endangered instruments”, with performances from notable instrumentalists Christopher…
Musick for the Royal Fireworks 270th Anniversary
Earlier this year eighty double-reed players joined junior members of the Royal Academy of Music in London in a commemorative performance of Handel’s Musick for the Royal Fireworks, 270 years to the day after its first performance. Laurence Perkins led…
Uilleann Bagpipe Chanter Double Reeds In Action
We have heard from Phil Westwell who has taken some interesting slow-motion photography of an uilleann bagpipe chanter double reed; there is a link below to the film on YouTube. It makes for interesting viewing. For those who aren’t familiar…
Silent Aria: Suite for Oboe & Piano by Philip Herbert
Oboists might be familiar with the abridged version of Silent Aria which appears on the ABRSM oboe syllabus; here is some background to how the full suite came to be written. The suite for oboe and piano was published in…
Music for Rare Instruments
The BDRS has been blessed with the generous gift of access to a repertoire of downloadable music for the rarer instruments of the double reed family by Jennifer Paull, whom you can read about here on Wikipedia. Jennifer spent her lifetime…