He's No Ordinary Joe - Interim oboe instructor familiar with UNCSA

Joseph Robinson said he feels "a little sorry" for the eight students he began teaching this month at UNC School of the Arts, noting that they've just lost their former teacher, the venerable John Ellis, to retirement.

"It takes a while to make a transition," Robinson said.
UNCSA's oboe students probably aren't feeling too sorry for themselves:
They're getting instruction from a former principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. And they'll get to hear him perform Mozart's Oboe Quartet Saturday in Watson Hall at UNCSA.

Ellis played in the Winston-Salem Symphony for many years and is noted for his appearances on recordings of John Williams' film scores. He left UNCSA at the end of December, and Robinson is serving as his interim replacement through May.

Michael Rothkopf, UNCSA's interim music dean, expressed delight with the appointment of Robinson, who taught at UNCSA from 1974 to 1978, the year that the New York Philharmonic hired him.
"Joe Robinson was the first person I thought of when John Ellis came to see me to tell me he had decided to retire," he said by e-mail. "I knew Joe from his work in the New York Philharmonic and also knew he was now living here in North Carolina. Joe was also the oboe teacher here at UNCSA before John Ellis took the job. He seemed to me to be the obvious person to ask."

Saturday's program, UNCSA's annual "Mozart Birthday Concert," will also include the Piano Sonata in F Major, with Robert Rocco as soloist, as well as the F-Major Sonata for Piano (Eric Larsen) and Violin (Joseph Genualdi). Violinist Kevin Lawrence, violist Sheila Browne and cellist Brooks Whitehouse will join Robinson in the performance of the quartet, which Robinson describes as "the greatest piece of chamber music ever written for the oboe by anybody."

Robinson grew up in Lenoir and began developing his performance skills in that town's great high-school band, which, sadly, has since disbanded.

He played in the New York Philharmonic until 2005, performing concertos, making several international tours and helping back such leading soloists as Isaac Stern, the late violinist, and cellist Yo Yo Ma.

"The best moments have been breathtaking, transcendent and unforgettable, and each reminds me of what Tabuteau once said when I asked him whether he could remember any best moments in his long career," Robinson wrote in The Wilson Quarterly, in 1995. "Pausing for a moment and looking toward the Alps, he said, 'There were a few good notes … and they are still ringing.'"

The late Marcel Tabuteau, described by The New York Times as "the father of American oboe playing," was a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1915 to 1954. In 1963, about three years before his death, Tabuteau gave Robinson five weeks of summer lessons while the latter was in Europe on a Fulbright grant to study government support of the arts in what was then West Germany.

At that time, Robinson had recently graduated from Davidson College, having earned a bachelor's degree in English and economics. Robinson, who also studied public administration at Princeton, is one of the few musicians without conservatory training to have landed a job in a top orchestra.

Robinson said that his lessons with Tabuteau "more than compensated for the conservatory training I didn't get." He refers to his four years in Winston-Salem as "my exile period, during which most of this Tabuteau stuff gestated and grew into something that could get me to the big league.
"When I was waiting for the next student to come, I was practicing very subtle and sophisticated things until I could do a lot of them way better than most people," Robinson said.

Robinson said he will try to pass on Tabuteau's teachings to his students. These recognize "the creative challenge of playing the music is infinite," that achievement in performing "is every bit as valid as that of the composer."

"Most young players are excited by the athletic challenge of mastering their instruments, of just playing lots of notes," Robinson said. "For people like … Tabuteau, that was just the starting point. Tabuteau was obsessed with the how of music, rather than the what.
"Virtuosity among his students throughout the years was expressed more in the subtlety of manipulation of notes and phrase building than in just doing quadruple somersaults on the instrument."

kkeuffel@wsjournal.com
727-7337

UNC School of the Arts will present its annual "Mozart Birthday Concert" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Watson Hall on campus. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors and students. Visit www.uncsa.edu/performances or call 721-1945.