My bassoon studio at Wilfrid Laurier University has become a model for students to develop the skills to present their own concerts and to understand all of the practical elements of advanced planning and organization.  We have developed a style of leadership that requires each member to take charge of a particular task and accept responsibility while understanding the project as a unified whole.  This is a skill that is required for a successful career in music.

As bassoonists, we will focus on three essential elements:  technique, reed making and repertoire.  

Technique - Our first weeks will be spent on developing scale routines that enhance your awareness of the full range of the bassoon and its potential for excellent intonation.  Parallel to this, we work on developing excellent breathing habits, relaxed and fluent hand positions and body awareness.  I have a rich and varied series of scale patterns and studies in escalating degrees of difficulty that lead will you through all aspects of the bassoon, giving you both fluency and depth of tone in all registers.  I frequently use orchestral excerpts as the basis for my scale studies and you will also be encouraged and expected to develop your own scale studies based on the challenges of your repertoires.  You will be expected to keep a record of all exercises and will leave school with a customized study book

Reed Making begins immediately for all bassoonists.  I will give each of you two professional quality reeds to start your development, and will show you how to make a blank and trim a working reed in our first weeks.   Our priority is to develop into  independent reed makers, an essential skill for teachers and performers alike.  My reed style has been developed through the challenges of a particularly diverse and exposed career and you can hear the results on 70 orchestral recordings and a dozen concerto, recital and chamber music CDs.

Repertoire - There is a vast body of solo and chamber music repertoire for the bassoon spanning the last three hundred and thirty years.  There are over 5,000 concerti for bassoon and orchestra and many more sonatas and works for bassoon alone.  Many pieces have been written for me as a soloist and I will encourage you to explore the repertoire and identify your own tastes as a performer.  Giving a voice to the work of wonderful composers is the great joy of our instrument and is the purpose of my life.  I look forward to sharing this with you.

Nadina Mackie Jackson