Oboe Study at The Hartt School

Success for a professional career in music must include the highest possible performance skills and the broadest possible musicianship. The Hartt Oboe program is uniquely designed to make that happen.

Hartt offers an intense, thorough, and comprehensive program in oboe. The program offers three hours of scheduled study per week that provides students with a broad knowledge on the instrument's possibilities, repertoire, history, and future. Students will increase their current knowledge and skills and also learn those aspects of the instrument that they are not familiar with.

During each semester, students attend weekly private lessons, studio master classes, guest master classes and presentations, and various performing opportunities.

The Hartt Oboe program is competitive, yet friendly, and is the right size to give each student maximum individual attention and performance opportunities.

For audition information, please visit the audition requirements page.

Private Lessons

One-hour, weekly, private lessons focus on technical and musical development. All aspects of classical and contemporary styles and techniques are learned through the use of scales, exercises, etudes, and solos. Students will acquire a well-balanced repertoire of baroque, classical, romantic, and contemporary concerti, sonatas, and other solo pieces. Graduate students are expected to present two solo recitals and undergraduate students are expected to present a full Senior Recital. Each student is assigned an accompanist for the semester.

Studio Class

This class meets for an hour and a half weekly. It is meant to give students the opportunity to perform their current repertoire, be it a solo piece, excerpts or something for an upcoming performance or audition, in front of their colleagues for feedback and experience. In turn the rest of the students learn about others playing and how they can apply aspects to their own playing. It is also a time for the entire studio to be in one place at one time and talk oboe musings. 

Master Classes

Each year, there are several in-house and guest master classes from major contributors to the oboe. All oboe students are required to attend and expected to participate in these professional classes. A partial list of master classes presented in the past are John Symer (repairman), Frank Meyer (Ludwig-Frank oboes in Germany), Tong Cui (maker of Innoledy gouger), Ray Still (former Principal, Chicago Symphony Orchestra), John Mack (former Principal, Cleveland Orchestra), Robert Bloom (Yale School of Music), Chris Philpotts, (reedmaker, English Horn,Cincinnati Symphony), Sherry Sylar (Associate Principal, New York Philharmonic, Mannes College of Music), and alumni Washington Borella (SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden/Freiburg), Casey Hill (Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia), and Karen Birch Blundell (Sarasota Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival).

Reedmaking

While there is no formal class offered for reedmaking the Hartt Oboe program currently takes the "apprentice" method of learning to make reeds. The studio is open to the students the majority of the week to work on reeds with other oboe students. This approach supports camaraderie and allows the students to see and understand everyone's reed style and in turn develop a deeper knowledge in their own reedmaking in the hopes of producing a complex and great reed.

Ensemble Experience

As an oboist at Hartt there is a wide range of opportunities to play in ensembles. There are three large ensembles at Hartt being the Hartt Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band. Chamber music is also offered in the form of small chamber ensembles assigned to a coach and Baroque Music Collegium. Outside of formal groups it is not unheard of, and encouraged for students to create their own opportunities for ensembles.

Oboe Faculty
Bert Lucarelli