Meet the Bassoon: Suzanne Nelsen 

Suzanne Nelsen always has the best interviews!!

Definitely one of the best speakers I've seen in this series, felt so personal and it was great

Thank you Suzanne! The first great bassoonist I ever heard in college was David McGill. He was a senior, and I was a new freshman trumpeter. Back in 1984!

This is by far the best intro to the bassoon I have seen. What a superb teacher. She had good advice to try different instruments. And others have funny stories how they wound up with one. The late Philip Farkas (was principle horn player for the Chicago Symphony) started in school on the Tuba. But he had to ride a street car to and from school and the conductor wouldn't tolerate him blocking the door with the big tuba case. He asked the conductor "What would be OK? The conductor pointed to another student with a French horn case. And that was that. He said his life might have been easier if the other boy had been carrying a flute case. But the horn worked out pretty well for him.

This was one of the most delightful and fun bassoon presentations. Would that I were 1) younger, 2) still had my bassoon, and 3) had access to contact Ms. Nelsen, I would study with her in a heartbeat!

This is wonderful!! Love this!

Wonderful! Thanks.

This is great! Such an amazing sound!

Is she playing on a Bensen Bell Bassoon? I’ve been wanting to try one for a long time, and it looks like one

Bassoon fan approved

Brilliant!

That's hilarious, love her 💙

After clarinet I switched to bassoon for quite a while as a student, but then made a big change to French horn and ultimately went fully to the dark side - trumpet. One thing I noticed about the bassoon was that of all the instruments in all the sections of the orchestra, with the exception of some (not all) bass clarinets, the bassoon is the only instrument where you must use all ten fingers to operate it. I also remember that most of the time when I had a reed exactly to my liking, I would carelessly raise the instrument and chip the reed on my teeth.