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Janet Polk, bassoon, earned her bachelor’s degree in Music
Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she won the
coveted Lebow Memorial Scholarship for musical excellence, and her master’s
degree in Music History at the University of New Hampshire. After
graduation from UMass, she taught classroom music to students in grades
K-6. Encouraged by her private and master class studies with Emile
Hebert, Mark Popkin, Sol Schoenbach and John Miller, she began a free-lance
career on bassoon. Currently, she is principal bassoonist of both the
Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Portland Symphony Orchestra. She has also
performed with the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony, New
Hampshire Music Festival and Indian Hill Symphonies and traveled to Honduras
through the Partners of the Americas to help start a national youth
symphony.
As a
member of the Block ensemble, she won prizes in the International Concert
Artists Guild competition and John Knowles Paine competition, and performed at
the prestigious Round Top Festival in Texas. With the trio
Sospiri, (Margaret Herlehy, oboe; Janet Polk, bassoon; Arlene Kies,
piano) she has a CD of Trios of the 20th and 21st
Century with works by Madeleine Dring, Alun Hoddinut, Willard S. Elliott,
David Diamond and Christopher Kies.
Active as
a soloist, she has performed with the Vermont Symphony, Portland Symphony,
Indian Hill Symphony, Dartmouth Symphony, UNH Orchestra, Northampton (Mass.)
Chamber Orchestra, and Furman University Concert Band, and given recitals at
New England colleges and universities. Janet has premiered works
written especially for her including Concerto for Bassoon and Strings by
Gwyneth Walker and Sonata for Bassoon and Piano by Christopher Kies.
In October 2006, she will perform Joseph Haydn’s Sinfonie Concertante with
Jaimie Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Nancy Dimock and the Vermont Symphony
Orchestra.
In
addition to her performing career, Janet teaches bassoon at the University of
New Hampshire and Dartmouth College, and has completed an instructional video
for beginning bassoonists through Warner Brothers Publications. She lives
with her husband, Keith, in Nottingham, N.H.
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