Elaina Buzzell

I started playing the bassoon when I was twelve. I had started playing the clarinet the year previous, and was recruited to the double-reed world with promises of easy college scholarships. Even through I stuck with it through the end of high school, I was never able to get much specialized bassoon instruction, and little information on how to care for and maintain reeds. Even though a friend gave me an old family member’s bassoon on an essentially permanent loan, I wasn’t in any position to go through any auditions and choose other majors in college.

For the most part, I left the bassoon in its case until the beginning of 2010, when a friend started up a casual orchestra with my church. We were quite the motley crew of instruments, ages and skills, but the regular practices and goals were what I needed to get started again. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past year, I have been playing with a wind quintet with some friends from church, and we had a fabulous performance this weekend. I am so proud of how great we sound in these videos, but also for how far we’ve come since we began. With the exception of our flute players, we all had come from significant lapses since we last played. I hadn’t played in the 10 years since I graduated high school, but, through regular practice and some lessons, have grown significantly from where I was then. I would never have been able to play these pieces in high school, and have taken much joy from our experiences as a group. I hope that you enjoy listening to these pieces. Read the rest of this entry »