Kristin Wolfe Jensen has been Professor of Bassoon at The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music since 1995 and is also principal bassoonist with ROCO, on the faculty at the International Festival Institute at Round Top, and a licensed body mapping educator. She is the creator of the multimedia bassoon tutorial, MusicandtheBassoon.org and producer of the video series, The Herzberg/Kamins Reed Making Method.

The American Record Guide said about her solo CD, Shadings. “...She has simply turned in the finest-played bassoon recital I have ever heard”. Other critically acclaimed solo and chamber music recordings include …and Kristin Wolfe Jensen, Parables and Reflections, and Handel: The “Halle” Sonatas. Ms. Jensen has performed with the Dallas Symphony, The Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, the San Antonio Symphony, the Eastern Philharmonic, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Richardson Symphony, the Las Vegas Symphony, the Jupiter Symphony of New York and Continuum, and has given guest recitals and masterclasses at many major American music schools, and in South America and Europe. She has performed solo recitals at several International Double Reed Society conferences and was co-host of the 2005 conference in Austin.

Her former students hold major orchestral, military band and university faculty positions across the U.S. Prior to her appointment at UT, she was on the faculties of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of North Texas. As a student, she won the concerto competitions at the Juilliard School of Music where she received her Master of Music degree, and at the Oberlin Conservatory where she received her Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Music Education degrees, which led to performances of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto, k. 191.

William Short was appointed Principal Bassoon of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2012. He previously served in the same capacity with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and has also performed with the Houston and Detroit Symphonies and the Philadelphia Orchestra. William has performed as soloist with the Vermont and Delaware Symphonies, the New York Classical Players, and the Strings Festival Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Gotham Wind Quintet and is a regular performer with Camerata Pacifica and Dolce Suono chamber music series.

A dedicated teacher, William serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Temple University, and is a Valade Fellow at Interlochen Arts Camp. In addition, he is a Visiting Faculty member at The Tianjin Juilliard School and has held visiting guest positions at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has presented classes at colleges and conservatories around the world and at conferences of the International Double Reed Society, for which he served as a board member from 2017-2021.

William has performed and taught at the Lake Champlain, Lake Tahoe, Mostly Mozart, Stellenbosch (South Africa), Strings, and Twickenham Festivals. An occasional arranger, editor, and composer, his works have been published by the Theodore Presser Company and TrevCo-Varner Music.

Committed to forging connections between audiences and performers, William’s articles on the subject have been lauded not only by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, but also by noted arts consultant Drew McManus and prolific cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht.

William received his Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Daniel Matsukawa and Bernard Garfield, and his Master of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins. He attended festivals including the Music Academy of the West, Pacific Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and the Verbier Festival. Additional major teachers have included Jeanine Attaway, Kristin Wolfe Jensen, and William Lewis. A Fox Artist, William plays on a Model 750, which he is proud to have helped develop.

From 1998 until 2022, Dennis Michel was second bassoon of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also a member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians, he serves as artist teacher of bassoon and head of woodwind chamber music at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Since 1988, he has spent his summers teaching and performing at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. He previously held the position of principal bassoonist of the San Diego Symphony and San Diego Opera, and he was a founding member of the Arioso Wind Quintet.

He holds degrees from Eastern Washington University and Yale University. His principal teachers include Wendal Jones and Arthur Weisberg. In 1996, Michel was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for advanced study at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, where he studied with Milan Turkovic. During that time, he also performed with the Vienna State Opera.

As a teacher, he has held positions at Wichita State University, San Diego State University, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Southern California and Northwestern University.

An active chamber musician, he has performed with the Da Camera Society of Houston, on the chamber series at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and at numerous summer festivals including Tanglewood, the Bard Festival in New York, Flagstaff Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival and Summerfest La Jolla, where he was a featured artist for ten seasons.

He lives in Oak Park with his wife Peggy, an active freelance oboist and teacher, and together they enjoy cooking, traveling and spending as much time as possible with family and friends.