oboe
Lecturer in Oboe. Stephen Taylor holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III Solo Oboe Chair with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also solo oboe with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (where he is co-director of chamber music), the American Composers Orchestra, the New England Bach Festival Orchestra, and the renowned contemporary music group Speculum Musicae. He plays as co-principal oboe with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
He appears regularly as soloist and chamber musician at such major festivals as Spoleto, Caramoor International Music Festival, Aldeburgh, Bravo! Colorado, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Schleswig-Holstein. Stereo Review named his recording of Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante for winds (Deutsche Grammophon with Orpheus) the “Best New Classical Recording.” Included among his more than 200 other recordings are Bach arias with Itzhak Perlman and Kathleen Battle, Bach’s oboe d’amore concerto, as well as premier recordings of the Wolpe Oboe Quartet, Elliott Carter’s Oboe Quartet (for which Mr. Taylor received a Grammy nomination), and works of Andre Previn. He has premiered many of Carter’s works including A Mirror on Which to Dwell, Syringa, Tempo e Tempi, Trilogy for Oboe and Harp, Oboe Quartet, and A6 Letter Letter.
Trained at the Juilliard School with teachers Lois Wann and Robert Bloom, Mr. Taylor is also a member of its faculty, as well as those at SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY Purchase, and the Manhattan School of Music. He collects and restores old wooden boats and plays on a rare Caldwell model Laree oboe. Mr. Taylor joined the Yale faculty in 2006.