Jesse Read has performed as Principal Bassoonist with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, the CBC Radio-Curio Ensemble, the Turning Point Ensemble and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. He has also appeared as a soloist with the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Rotterdam and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, and numerous others.

As a recording artist, he has worked with Tafelmusik of Toronto, Philharmonia Baroque San Francisco, Capella Clementina Köln, Philomel, and the Boston and Los Angeles Baroque Orchestras. He has also released numerous solo CDs to wide acclaim on the Etcetera, Bravura and Skylark labels.

Mr. Read’s career began at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis Music Academy of Basel, Switzerland, where he specialized in performing 18th-Century music and discovered a life-long passion for popularizing lesser-known and undiscovered music for winds. He has written on the subject extensively and championed lesser-known composers and commissioned numerous works from them.

He has also devoted himself to teaching; in addition to having held positions at the University of Victoria, University of Delaware, and the Utrecht Conservatory, he has taught master classes for the European Mozart Academy and in the conservatories of Montpellier, Lisbon, Warsaw, Prague, UCLA and Indiana University, among others. He currently serves as the Director of the School of Music and as Professor of Bassoon at the University of British Columbia and has been associated with the Carmel Bach Festival since 1980.

www.jesseread.com