Bassoonist Christopher Foss is a teaching artist and freelance musician in New York City. Most recently he has returned to play with groups such as Wordless Music Orchestra, SEM Ensemble, and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra after completing a two-year Broadway tour of The Sound of Music, giving over 350 performances across China, India, and much of Southeast Asia. He is formerly contrabassoonist with the Bakersfield Symphony and American Youth Symphony, performing in halls across the East and West Coast such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie Hall. He has appeared as a soloist with the New Millennium Orchestra, Divertimento Strings, and premiered new works for bassoon at REDCAT theatre in Downtown LA. In addition to traditional orchestral freelancing he has appeared in concert with critically acclaimed artists such as Joanna Newsome, Ravi Coltrane, and the legendary Kathleen Battle at the Boca Festival of the Arts.
In 2017-18 he was awarded a fellowship with the Lynn Philharmonia to pursue additional performance studies with friend and mentor, bassoonist Eric Varner. He has performed in festival orchestras across the US, Canada, and Italy and has additionally led classes at Cal State University Northridge, Arts Institute of North Hollywood, University of Southern Maine, University of New Hampshire, Tokyo Alexander Technique School, and is currently on faculty at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and adjunct lecturer of Humanities at CUNY CityTech.
His credits in contemporary music include work with WildUp, Relachê Ensemble, S.E.M. Ensemble, Tri-Centric Foundation, Atlantic Music Festival, Brooklyn Raga Massive, Curiosity Cabinet, coaching with Kaufmann Music Center’s Face the Music contemporary performance program for high school, and multi-genre performances at Roulette Intermedium, where he also served as A2 live sound assistant. He frequently performs in house concerts, experimental music venues, and plays Wandelweiser works with LCollective on Teodora Stepančić’s series Piano+ and has been featured in work with Southland Ensemble and Dog Star Orchestra in Los Angeles. In addition, he curates loft performances in his Brooklyn home, having highlighted artists such as Jessie Cox, Erin Rogers, Victoria Cheah, Pauline Kim Harris, Roberta Michel, and occasionally hosting with Mara Mayer’s Home Audio series.
His playing is recorded on Mark Masters, punk label Records DK, and with the self-released bassoon ensemble, Voices in the Wood. The New York Classical Review credits “agressively imaginative contributions from bassoonist/saxophonist Christopher Foss” in their review of John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra performed by S.E.M. Ensemble.
His formal education began at the University of New Hampshire with bassoonist Janet Polk where he was awarded an international research grant to work with bassoonist Giorgio Versiglia at L’Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali Gaetano Donizetti in Bergamo, Italy. Continuing his education, he completed an MFA degree with bassoonist Julie Feves at the California Institute of the Arts, where he specialized in both contemporary performance practice and served as Baroque Ensemble manager with oboist Allan Vogel. In addition he studies Kinko-ryu shakuhachi repertoire with Ralph Samuelson, composer Elizabeth Brown, and with Mizuno Koumei, head of Chikumeisha school in Tokyo. For a brief time he reviewed double reed discography for The American Record Guide and has articles on education and the Alexander Technique published in the journal of the International Double Reed Society.
