NATCHITOCHES – The Mrs. H.D. Dear Sr. and Alice E. Dear School of Creative and Performing Arts will host a reed making seminar on Saturday, Oct. 12 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Fine Arts Annex.
Registration for the seminar is $25 and covers materials. The event is designed for oboe players of all levels to enhance their skill and knowledge of making oboe reeds, according to Assistant Professor of Oboe Leah Forsyth. To register, go to leahforsythmusic.com/nsu-oboes.
Guest artist Jennifer Case will perform that evening at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.
Case returned to Huntsville, Alabama, after spending nearly 10 years performing in New York City. With a great passion for orchestral performance, Case holds the position of Second Oboe with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and also Second Oboe/English horn with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra. While in New York, Case performed with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center and has performed with numerous other orchestras.
As an active chamber musician, she was a founding member of Harmonie Huntsville, a double reed duo with a mission to explore and share double reed repertoire while collaborating with innovative composers and musicians from the Tennessee Valley and beyond. In 2009 she gave a full-length concert with the Sonevole Woodwind Quintet at St. Patrick’s Cathedral before traveling to France and advancing in the Henri Tomasi Woodwind Quintet Competition. This group went on to form the Troika Reed Trio, which enjoyed numerous performances throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Her musical training began at the age of four, when she eagerly began cello lessons. While she advanced on the cello, she was introduced to the oboe and it quickly became a crucial component of her life. A member of the Huntsville Youth Orchestra for 12 years, she won the concerto competition twice and performed as soloist with the orchestra- once on cello and once on oboe. She made her New York orchestral solo debut in 2007 performing the Goossens Oboe Concerto with the Mannes Orchestra.
Case completed her Bachelor of Music at the Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music as a student of Dr. Mark Ostoich. She earned her Master of Music at Mannes College, where she received a scholarship and studied with Sherry Sylar, Associate Principal Oboe with the New York Philharmonic.
In addition to teaching oboe and woodwind quintet at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Case has developed a large private studio and is the Oboe Instructor for the Tennessee Valley Music Festival.
