Jesse Read

Jesse Read's remarkable career has embraced a rich and diverse range of repertoire, styles and activities in the professional world, including bassoonist, conductor, composer, and scholar. As a soloist, Mr. Read has explored the world of the 18th-Century with 3 highly-rated CDs on the Etcetera label, a disc featuring 19-Century virtuoso opera variations and another of chamber music with horns on the Bravura label, and a recent disc with guitar of music from South America, on Skylark.

He has served for 20 years as the principal bassoonist of the Carmel Bach Festival in California, and has toured and recorded with such familiar ensembles as Tafelmusik of Toronto, Philharmonia of San Francisco, Philomel, Boston Baroque, the Netherlands chamber Orchestra, The Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, and the Capella Clementina of Cologne.

Mr. Read is currently the Director of the School of Music at the University of British Columbia where he is Professor of Bassoon and the Conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Read has championed newly discovered and newly written works and has commissioned and given first performances of numerous new works for the oft-neglected bassoon.

Mr. Read is currently principal bassoonist of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and is featured often in solo and chamber music roles. In addition to numerous festival appearances and guest teaching invitations, he has served on the visiting faculty of the European Mozart Academy, conducting and giving master classes in Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Budapest and Florence.

During a period of study at the renowned academy for study of early music, the Schola Cantorum Baseliensis in Basel Switzerland, Mr. Read became fluent in the performance of 18th-Century music, and is often heard performing on baroque and classical instruments, and his interest in neglected and undiscovered music has led to several important publications, recordings and editions of previously unknown music.

In recent years, Mr. Read has been more active as a conductor, appointed in 1995 as the Music Director of the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, the oldest community orchestra in the area.