Saxton Rose

Saxton Rose's virtuosic interpretations of traditional repertoire and his dedication to new music have afforded him a prolific and varied career as a soloist and as an orchestral and chamber musician. Performances this season include works from Bach to Berio, Mozart to Frank Zappa and a number of world premieres from contemporary composers influenced by jazz, rock and electronica. Mr. Rose is artist/professor of bassoon at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the principal bassoonist for the Winston-Salem Symphony.

Mr. Rose performs and teaches throughout the world. In May 2010, he performed the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the National Symphony of Colombia in Bogotá and a concerto by Vivaldi with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Caldas, Colombia. Other recent engagements as a concerto soloist have been with the National Symphony of Panamá, the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and the Winston-Salem Symphony. In demand as a recitalist and clinician, he has performed and taught at festivals in Costa Rica, Austria, Spain, Canada, Panamá, Colombia and England. In the United States, he has given master classes at the University of Indiana, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, Lawrence Conservatory, Ball State University and Butler University, as well as at many others. He has performed as an invited guest at the conferences of the International Double Reed Society, for which he serves as associate editor of IDRS Online Publications  and chairman of the IDRS Young Artist Bassoon Competition. Mr. Rose is a J. Püchner performing artist.

As principal bassoonist of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2008, he performed with many of the leading artists of our time, including Yo Yo Ma, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Placido Domingo, Ben Hepner, Joshua Bell, Anna Netrebko, Sarah Chang, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Pepe Romero and the Emerson String Quartet. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in the Casals Festival and on tours to Europe and Latin America.

Throughout his career, Mr. Rose has worked to expand the repertoire of the bassoon and to redefine its role in contemporary music by collaborating with established and emerging composers to commission new works. In early 2010, he helped found Dark in the Song, a bassoon collective comprised of five of the most widely known bassoonists in the contemporary music scene: Rachael Elliott, Lynn Hileman, Michael Harley, Peter Kolkay and Rose. Called a "bassoon supergroup" by the American Music Center, Dark in the Song performs and commissions new works, collaborating directly with composers to create a new 21st century repertoire for bassoon ensembles. As a member of Camerata Caribe, a Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music faculty chamber ensemble, he worked with such Puerto Rican composers as Latin Grammy Nominee Alfonso Fuentes, William Ortiz, José Rodríguez Alvira and Alberto Rodríguez on the creation of new solo and chamber music for the bassoon.

Mr. Rose began studying the bassoon in his hometown near Chicago. His training includes courses in Germany, Austria and Italy with some of Europe's most distinguished bassoonists including Gustavo Nuñez and Sergio Azzolini. He graduated with highest honors from the class of Stefano Canuti at the Conservatorio "Agostino Steffani" in Castelfranco-Veneto, Italy and is a former student of William Winstead at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Other teachers include Yoshi Ishikawa and Timothy McGovern.