Dear Ones,
Welcome to this devotion of oboe playing, teaching, and studying love.
If there’s is anything I can do - as a composer or coach - to assist you in your oboe playing life journey, please let me know!
I have just moved the ALL ABOUT Oboe Brilliance, off the home page, and into a blog format for those interested.
Simply put - Oboe Brilliance celebrates oboe playing for ALL ages, and stages by providing original as well as custom, musical compositions, and coaching for the oboists of today and tomorrow! Oboe Brilliance offers growing selection of oboe solo, oboe ensemble, and oboe in ensemble works.
FIRST
The mustard seed of inspiration:
Maybe you can relate? When I was a tiny little girl, of about age 3, I fell (crazy) in love with the oboe when I first heard Prokofiev’s, “Peter and the Wolf”, a musical tale for children. Oh my gosh, I was a puddle of tears when I heard that duck crying in the wolf’s belly. After I declared to my father that when I’m a grown up, I’m going to play the duck instruments, he said, “Oh, you don’t have to an adult to play the oboe!” AHA - at that moment, the waiting began…… until five years later, when I was ALMOST physically big enough to start playing the duck instrument - I mean the oboe - I began! It was on Wednesday, January 7, 1974, when I was in the 3rd grade. I was sooooo fortunate to have a caring saxophonist take me under his big and compassionate wings to begin my oboe playing pilgrimage, until I could find an oboe teacher.
I better stop there for now.
Moving forward, here are a few highlights.
But wait - before that, a quick note, I can’t express my appreciation enough for ALL the music teachers, and the phenomenal public school music program which I was fortunate enough to have attended. K -12. What a gift to all of us children, on so many levels.
(Three cheers for adults, teachers - and composers - who nurture the love of music in children.)
Please know, that with OBOE BRILLIANCE, I’m simply doing my best, to pay it forward and contribute to our musical world, children of all ages, as best I can.
SPECIAL thanks to all the people - tech support, publishers, organizations, performers, teachers, instrument makers, repairers, reed magicians and ALL who keep these wheels spinning in front of and behind the curtains.
OK - read on now.
Thanks and best wishes!
K.J.P.
founder
MISSION: To compose, and teach, additional oboe pedagogy and repertoire for oboe and winds.
VISION: To establish an international school of Oboe Brilliance - hopefully by 2035.
PURPOSE: To perpetually increase the level of joy and compassionate love consciousness through devoted artistry: creation, study, teaching and performance with life long oboe, double reed and wind playing. (It’s all about love, really.)
FOUNDED: Oboe Brilliance was founded November 4, 2010 in Asheville N.C., by N.Y. born, composer and music teacher, with an oboe specialty, Kathryn J. Potter, when K.J.P. self published 3 books of music she’d composed for her oboe students*;
IN ADORATION OF THE EARTH, 12 progressive études for solo oboe, (SHOP)
THE SECRETS OF RAVENS, 7 intermediate duets for oboe,
FLYING WITH RAVENS INTO THE NIGHT, quartet for 4 oboes.
*of K.J.Potter’s Music studio, which provided individualized oboe, flute, piano and composition lessons to children adults and seniors from 1992 - 2010 in Asheville, N.C..
FOUNDER: Kathryn J. POTTER, born in N.Y., passionate oboist and student from 1974 - 2021, oboe teacher from 1992 - , published composer since 2010. Internationally published, studied and performed composer and educator, with an oboe specialty, since 2012.
EDUCATION of Founder: Started with a childhood intensive arts education, of ballet (10 years),private piano lessons, church and school choirs, theatrical performances and consistent instrumental ensemble involvement, along with
her private oboe/composition lessons w/ noted teachers:
James CASSARA, (L.I., N.Y.), Peter HERTLING (L.I.,N.Y.)
on scholarship:
Lois WANN (N.Y.C., N.Y.) “Kathy can make a heart of stone weep.”
Peter Hedrick (I.C., Ithaca N.Y.)
Michael WINFIELD (Surrey, England) “What angel brings the sound of heaven to earth? Why it’s Miss POTTER with her oboe!”
Marc LIFSCHEY (S.F.C. of M., CA) “Her mental focus and emotional intensity astound me.”
her private composition teachers, on scholarship, include:
Karel HUSA (I.C., Ithaca N.Y.) “K.J. is a powerfully creative feminine force as a composer and performer.”
(Karel and K.J. focused studying the music of Béla Bartok and also the philosophy of inspiration, integrity and purpose.)
Eli ARMER (S.F.C. of M, CA) “K.J. is both a deeply expressive performer and talented composer.”
(Ms. Armer, student of Darius Milhaud, imparted his philosophy, and the culinary metaphors applied to composition to Kathryn J. which she deliberately incorporates into her compositions, thus keeping a lineage.)
K.J.P. is an ALUMNA of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she majored in oboe performance and composition on merit scholarship, after transferring from beginning her higher education at Ithaca College N.Y., and London England.
RECOGNITION and HONORS:
Music of Kathryn J. POTTER is incorporated as curriculum by students of Marika LOMBARDI at the Lili et Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire de Paris, France, as well as other fine schools around the world.
Association Français du HAUTBOIS endorses the solo oboe book “Illuminations”.
Federation Musicale de FRANÇAIS, listed selections of the book “Arc en Ciel” for repertoire éts d’enseignment musical, 2022.
The ANEMOS WW5tet, commissioned “Songes d’un Cœur Épris” WW5TET, for the Midieval Festival in Europe of 2013.
Kathryn POTTER., since 2012, is a repeated guest teacher, composer, coach and performer with the annual OBOEPARIS Festival in Paris, France and a repeated composer celebrating international women’s day in Paris,
at the American Church in 2020, at the Italian Embassy of Paris in 2015. MUSE ECHO
Awarded an Asheville downtown HERO, N.C. in 1995, for being the Director of two performing arts series; Early Music to the Avant Garde, and The performing arts series, at the Green Door, in Asheville, where she brought together various ages, skill levels, and performance genres, for artistic and local community cultural enrichment.
Awarded the Bayport/Bluepoint, Stacey Luff memorial award, for her caring nature and zest for life.
Awarded the Islip Township of N.Y., “Outstanding Achievement in the Performing Arts” .
Founding Philosophy: “I believe the ultimate purpose of art, as well as humanity, is to increase love consciousness.” K.J.P.
