Oboe has taken me to travel the world.
I started playing oboe at the age of 8, under the guidance of Monsieur Roland Dufrane, a great Belgian oboist and teacher. When at first oboe class he told me: “I’m not going to teach you how to play oboe,” I was shocked. Then he continued: “ I’m going to teach you how to study playing oboe.” I thank him deeply for what he has taught me during my early studies. He was very thorough with detail, and he opened my ears and eyes to music.
I left my parents home at the age of 14 to play my first concert as soloist with a symphonic orchestra. My teacher called me and said: “You will go to play in my place. I don’t want to travel (900 km North) anymore, and you can do it well”. So I practiced and applied what I’ve learnt. The concerts were great. It was a totally new experience for me.
Few years later, my dreams have come true. A conductor heard me playing in the gallery and asked me to join his orchestra; soon I started playing solo concertos. That opened doors to a long performing career. I got to perform with fantastic musicians. I continued my studies with great musicians, too: Paul Dombrecht, Thomas Indermühle, Emmanuel Abbülh.
Soon I became principal oboist of the Israel Sinfonietta where I got to play Schoenberg Kammersinfonie, Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, Prokofiev Classical symphony. Later I became the principal oboist with the Israel Chamber Orchestra under the great violinist Shlomo Minthz and toured the world with them.
The time came when I wanted to explore new repertoire and became principal oboist of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias where among other pieces, I had the pleasure of performing Mozart’s oboe concerto, Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for winds, Frank Marin’s Concerto for seven wind instruments and J. S. Bach’s oboe d’amore concerto. Invited as soloist with Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa, I had the great pleasure of performing the première of Martinu’s oboe concierto in Mexico.
Wanting to explore repertoire even further and facing new challenges I committed to study the earlier oboes, and soon started to perform with the leading specialist on the field: Philippe Herrewhege’s Collegium Vocale and Orchestre des Champs Elysées, Sir John Elliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, Sigiswald Kuijken’s La petite band among many others.
Hundreds of concerts played with these outstanding performers made me realize that it is possible to find a deeper meaning in music and to perform it in a rhetorical way. Therefore, I decided to make serious research and got enrolled into a PhD program at the Sorbonne University in Paris. In 2012 my PhD was defended with honors. My dissertation deals with musical and rhetorical analysis, and performer abilities and challenges. For six years I have been teaching early oboes, chamber music and rhetorical analysis at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris.
The knowledge and expertise I received on this fascinating journey changed the way I approach music in general and oboe repertoire in particular.
