Profile

Bassoonist Dr. David A. Wells has extremely wide-ranging musical tastes, abilities, and experiences. Currently, he is mostly engaged in historically-informed performances on period bassoons ranging from the 17^th to the early 20^th centuries with groups including the Carmel Bach Festival, American Bach Soloists, Sinfonia Spirituosa, Sacramento Baroque Soloists, Aston Magna Festival, and Santa Cruz Baroque Festival. He is also an adept performer on the modern bassoon and contrabassoon, equally at home with standard orchestral/chamber/solo repertoire and demanding modern works involving extended techniques and/or electronics. In addition, Wells has a predilection for taking the bassoon to unexpected places, most notably having played for nine years with the Django Reinhardt-inspired swing sextet Hot Club Faux Gitane.

Wells serves as Co-Executive Director of Meg Quigley, an organization focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion within the bassoon world. He is also active as a music scholar, having presented papers at the conferences of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, and the International Double Reed Society. At California State University, Sacramento, Wells teaches bassoon, music history, and general education music classes. He holds both a D.M.A. in Bassoon Performance and an M.A. in Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and also studied at Florida State University and Arizona State University. His principal teachers include Jeffrey Lyman, Jeff Keesecker, and Marc Vallon. When not playing or teaching, he can be found open-water swimming, photographing nature, collecting records, and trying to keep up with his super-librarian/yogi wife, Veronica.

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