Here at the People Page, you'll find a little bit of information about myself and my students in the University of Michigan Bassoon Studio. For information about me, please scroll down. For information about individual students, please click on their names below.
DMA: Susan Nelson
MM: Timothy Abbott, Matthew Morris
Seniors: John Gettel, Tom Reynolds
Juniors: Randy Dennler, Conner Howell, Gabriel Pomerantz
Sophomores:Doré Deffebaugh, Kirsten Filbrandt, Beverly Fryer, Patrick Souza
Freshmen: Christian Green, Jared Herman, Ryan Reynolds
University of Michigan: 2006-present
Arizona State University: 1996-2006
Bowling Green State University: 1993-1996
Interlochen Arts Camp: Valade fellow, summers 2005-2006
Académie Européene d'Été de Musique, Tournon-sur-Rhone, France: summer 1997
Master classes and guest bassoonist at many US universities and double reed events, plus master classes and/or guest lectures at the Moscow Conservatory, McGill University (Montreal), the Puerto Rico Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, the Eastman School of Music, Rice University, UCLA, John Miller's Minnesota Bassoon Association, etc.
Selected performance groups:
Some of the orchestras and ensembles I've performed with, either in full-time or subsitute capacity, include the Metropolitan Opera, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Ballet Company of Philadelphia, the Savannah Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Charleston Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival, the Saint Barth's Music Festival, the Bellingham Music Festival, the Moscow Autumn Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival (on a 7-keyed classical bassoon), the Vermont Mozart Festival, le Festival de Château d'Ainay-le-Vieil, the Penninsula Music Festival, etc., etc.
Other selected events and projects:
El Bajón en México: An ongoing multi-media project on the introduction of the bassoon to the New World by the Spaniards, plus a history of the bassoon in Mexico and an exploration of contemporary Mexican music for bassoon. Find it at the opening page of this site, or by clicking here.
Co-hosted (with oboist Martin Schuring) the 1998 Conference of the International Double Reed Society, in Tempe, AZ at Arizona State University. Featured performer at the Society's annual conferences almost every year since 1994, including those held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Melbourne, Australia, Banff (Alberta), Canada, Austin TX (with the entire ASU bassoon studio and composer/pianist Bill Douglas), etc.
Host and moderator of a web-based conference on electro-acoustic music at ASU during the fall of 2001, titled Hopping the Electric Fence. Besides a final day of concerts and lectures focusing on the current state of electro-acoustic music from the performer's point of view, this project included the commissioning of a new work for bassoon, ensemble, video and electronic sounds by David Gompper. The work, Kuta Muela, is Gompper's modern interpretation of some Yaqui traditional music, and has since been reworked into a quartet for bassoon solo, flute/piccolo, percussion and piano. It has been recorded and released on Albany Records with Dr. Lyman as soloist on the compact disc Monsterology, featuring works by several composers from the University of Iowa.
In November 1996 at the Moscow Autumn Festival, I gave the premier of a work composed for me by Yuri Kasparov, the director of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble. Titled "12 Samples of Interrelations between bassoon, 8 double basses and 8 timpani," the work was the culmination of a large project I initiated in 1994 involving the collection, performance and distribution of new works for bassoon by Moscow composers. The work was recorded and released by Le Chant du Monde but is no longer available. Many of the works I collected are listed elsewhere on this web page in the tables of new music for bassoon. (See the Bassoon Music tab above.) You can learn more about the Russian project in two articles I wrote for the International Double Reed Society Journal, "After Shostakovich, What Next?: New Russian/Soviet Music for Bassoon" (IDRS Journal #23, 1995) and "Making Modern Music in Moscow" (IDRS Journal #25, 1997).
Other research projects on bassoon subjects I've undertaken include the collection and investigation of 19th century French treatises for bassoon, issues of orchestration peculiarities and score correction in the music of Igor Stravinsky, the history of extended techniques for woodwind instruments, etc.
Selected publications:
I have several articles available through the publications of the International Double Reed Society. If you are a member of the IDRS, simply go to their web page at www.idrs.org and search their publications for the name "Lyman" and you'll find the articles. Some of my most recent can be read here in pdf files. (These files are quite large, and may take a bit of time to download or to open, depending on your browser.)
My latest article for the The Double Reed addresses a nagging question that has confused bassoonists for nearly a century and is titled "D or D flat?: Stravinsky's Berceuse and the Long Story of a Short Note." You'll find it in Volume 31, No. 1 of this publication, or you can read a pdf version of the article by clicking on the article title above.
"Sweet Music and Dry Wine: The Life of Bassoonist Gérard Faisandier" is the story of the bassoonist of the Paris Wind Quintet who in the early 1960's inherited a winery in Pomerol, France. The article traces Monsieur Faisandier's life from his boyhood in Bordeaux through the war years in Paris and eventually back to the wine country of southwest France.
"Une vraie musique française: Folk Song Sources in Joseph Canteloube's Rustiques" is my attempt to identify the many French folk tunes used by Joseph Canteloube in his famous trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. This work also lends its title to the Ocotillo Winds compact disc noted above.
"The Morceaux de concours for Bassoon since 1984: A Parisian Tradition Continues" is an annotated listing of the most recently composed contest pieces for bassoon used at the Conservatoire de Paris.
For more information on me, my teaching, my concerts, etc., just drop me a line at jlym@umich.edu or call my office at 734-764-2508. My mailing address is:
Dr. Jeffrey Lyman U of M School of Music, Theatre and Dance 1100 Baits Drive Ann Arbor MI 48109-2085Education: BM summa cum laude in Bassoon Performance from Temple University, 1983. Private study with Bernard Garfiled of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and chamber music studies with members of the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. While starting out in Philadelphia, I freelanced all around the city, and was a member of the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Mozart Society Orchestra, plus several other groups in southeast Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In the summers, I performed with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, SC and the Festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy, the Colorado Philharmonic (now the National Repertory Orchestra), and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra among others. Immediately upon graduation I took my first orchestral position as principal bassoonist of the Savannah Symphony under Christian Badea, which I held until 1991, at which time I left to earn my graduate degrees from the University of Michigan.
MM summa cum laude (1992) and DMA with highest honors (1994), from the University of Michigan. Private bassoon study with Richard Beene. Reed theory and instrument maintenance studies with Hugh Cooper. While in Ann Arbor, I performed with the Michigan Opera Theatre (bassoon and contrabassoon), the Grand Rapids Symphony (bsn and contra), the Toledo Symphony, the Ann Arbor Symphony and many other freelance groups. I also received a Rackham Research Partnership Grant to study the music of Igor Stravinsky with the eminent musicologist Glenn Watkins. During my last year of DMA study I was appointed Assistant Professor of Bassoon at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.
Beginning in 1996 I joined the faculty of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, and returned to Ann Arbor as Associate Professor of Bassoon at the University of Michigan in 2006.
