What could be more elitist than a holiday bassoon recital at Yale? I had to threaten some clueless legacy frosh into using his keycard to gain entry, as I was running a bit late. Once in, I had to wait for a song break to enter and forage for an elusive seat in the packed hall. What is this, Skull and Bassoons? Dr. Frank Morelli and his current clatch of merry lowenders put on an excellent show billed as “Bach, Bassoons, and The Beatles”. I listened to Eleanor Rigby through the door. The show continued with multiple swings at Brandenburg Concertos. The class was a mixed bag of players, a young black student with a classic old school fade, a Lilliputian Indian girl, a chunky middle eastern kid who had the kind of glasses that creepily magnified his eyes, two white guys ( tall and goofy, and short and hairy), and a stately well-dressed woman in heels, maybe a Daughter of the American Bassoon Revolution. The good Dr. shuffles different combinations of players to afford solos and backing for this excellent crop of music students. During the intermission, I spy Morelli interacting with the kids as if he were an older graying music student. Morelli said that many of the arrangements were pilfered from available trombone charts for the selected music. Last year, I focused on the player’s embouchure. This year, the facial expressions of the players were strikingly different. The black kid’s eyebrows furrowed as if he were chasing notes from the page. The Indian girl was so small, her music stand obscured any view of her face. The chunky kid’s googley eyes gave a cartoonish veneer. Tall and goofy seemed to be in a constant state of “who me?”, while short and hairy used his body to help coax sound. DABR used a low fi lemon sucking pucker for her sound. The Beatles section ensued in earnest. Yesterday, Norwegian Wood, Michelle, and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da were expertly executed. Amazing how such familiar music can be expertly interpreted in this foreign setting. The concert concluded with two holiday classics, Sleigh Ride, with googley eyes pulling his mouthpiece to conjure the horse whinny at the end, and Feliz Navidad the Feliciano chestnut. So, elitist? Let’s see, a free concert open to the public, the players a rainbow coalition of perfect SAT scores, a kooky prof who wants to be one of the kids, a program of music from the 1700s and 1960s, I guess this isn’t exclusive, but the epitome of diversity and inclusion.
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