Influencing a wider view of the technical and expressive capabilities of the oboe and oboist, Brenda Schuman-Posthas performed in almost every conceivable venue for almost every type of audience. Jazz Now magazine calls her an “oboe advocate,” and her Oboes Of The World CD is acclaimed as “groundbreaking!” She has built a career on versatility, making the oboe and its music accessible.
Brenda presents entertaining concerts and educational master classes, and lecture performances throughout the United States, in Europe, Indonesia, and Central America. Mpingo’s Fruit offers insight into the African people, places, processes, and politics involved in the harvesting of African Blackwood (grenadilla), the wood from which oboes, clarinets, flutes, bagpipes, and other instruments are made. Oboes Of The World is about ethnic oboes, world music, and what the oboe’s sound means to humanity. For music educators, she offers How to Play and Teach the Oboe, and as a skilled improviser, she leads workshops in Extended Techniques and Free Improvisation.
In 2003, Brenda won the Star Trek Idol Talent Search by composing and performing “Fantasy On Themes From Star Trek” for solo oboe. She has since been a celebrity performer, mingling with the ‘stars’ at Star Trek and Science Fiction conventions.
Brenda studied with Ronald Roseman, Marc Lifschey and in master class with Heinz Holliger. She is a prominent freelance orchestral, chamber, studio recording artist and private teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has played over 300 recitals with her offbeat oboe/piano/accordion duo Classical Trash. She performs chamber music with Oboe Plus, and is concertising and recording with The Solar Systers, performing pre-warp classics to interplanetary fusion.
From The Press…
“The Domine Deus solo provided a spine-tingling highlight… an arresting oboe obligato by Brenda Schuman-Post”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“… mastery of subtle phrasing… extreme finesse.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“… a first-rate oboist… an astonishingly wide range of dynamics and tone colors”
Oakland Tribune
“She has opened a window onto the oboe’s possibilities.”
Ned Rorem – Pulitzer Prize winning composer