ACTU presents ‘Double Reeds’ at next Friday at Noon
Post Published On:Arts for the Community at Thomas University will feature “Double Reeds” during the next Fridays at Noon performance on Nov. 18. The event, which will be held at 12 p.m. at the Thomas County Public Library, will include Jeffrey Keesecker and Margaret Cracchiolo, a husband-and-wife bassoon and oboe duo, along with oboist Eric Ohlsson.
This free program – with lunch provided by the library after the concert – will explore the double reed instruments of the orchestra by members of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra and Pensacola Symphony Orchestra.
Keesecker is Principal Bassoonist with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. He also holds the Paul W. and Phyllis G. Runge Principal Bassoon Chair with the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra and is the Bassoon Mentor of the National Music Festival in Maryland. Keesecker performed with the Florida Orchestra (Tampa), the Sarasota Orchestra, the St. Gallen Sinfonie (Switzerland), the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival (Asheville), and Solisti New York. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician across North America, in Europe, in South America, and in Asia. He is a frequent performer at annual conferences of the International Double Reed Society.
Keesecker has taught masterclasses and workshops on three continents and has been on the faculties of the Interlochen Arts Camp, Utah Music Festival, and Animas Music Festival (Durango). Keesecker gave the World Premiere of Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Bassoon and Wind Ensemble in 2003, and in 2006 released a solo CD entitled “Bassoon Music of the Americas.”
A native of Sarasota, Florida, Keesecker first studied bassoon with Trevor Cramer. He received the Bachelor of Music from FSU, studying with William Winstead, and the Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Steven Maxym. His training included participation in the Aspen Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar.
A native of San Francisco, Cracchiolo now lives in Tallahassee, where she has been a member of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra’s Oboe section since 2002, most currently in the Second Oboe/English Horn position. She also holds the Bobby and Suzanne Kahn Second Oboe/English Horn Chair with the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra.
Cracchiolo holds a Doctor of Music Degree in Oboe from Florida State University, and Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees in Oboe from the Manhattan School of Music. Before moving to Tallahassee, she lived in New York City. There Cracchiolo was Principal Oboe of Manhattan Virtuosi, where she also performed as a soloist on numerous occasions in The Great Hall at Cooper Union, as well as a freelance oboist in the metropolitan area. Her teachers have included Eric Ohlsson, Joseph Robinson, Stephen Taylor, William Banovetz, James Matheson, Janet Popesco Archibald, and Carolyn Hove.
Ohlsson has served as the Charles O. DeLaney Professor of Oboe in the College of Music at Florida State University since 1986. He performs regularly as principal oboist of the Tallahassee Symphony, the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, and in the summer months, with the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, where he has been a member of the Artist Faculty since 1994.
He has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America, including solo and chamber recitals at venues that include Weill Recital Hall in New York City, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, with the City Music Chamber Orchestra in Cleveland, at the Casa Rui Barbosa in Rio, at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, Florida, and at the Grand Castle of Vianden in Luxembourg. He performed at conferences of the International Double Reed Society on 10 separate occasions.
Ohlsson has been a featured soloist with the Naples Philharmonic, the Tallahassee Symphony, the Augusta Symphony, the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, City Music Cleveland, the Brevard Music Center Festival Orchestra and Brevard Sinfonia, the South Carolina Philharmonic, the South Carolina Chamber Orchestra, the Florida State Chamber Orchestra, and the University Orchestras of Florida State University and The Ohio State University.
His degrees are from The Ohio State University (DMA and MM) and James Madison University (BME).
This program is supported in part by Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency, the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information about this and other ACTU events, visit www.facebookcom/actu31792 or www.thomasu.edu/actu, call 229-227- 6964 or email actu@thomasu.edu.