Department of Woodwind Studies
Through one-to-one lessons, individual sessions with our
departmental accompanist, and time with our visiting consultants,
will enable you to concentrate on developing a secure technique and
explore essential solo repertoire. You will gain musical confidence
and develop appropriate professional skills, including teaching,
through participation in orchestral repertoire classes,
departmental performance classes, lunchtime concerts, masterclasses
and workshops. We also encourage students to engage in outside
activities and work in the community.
We provide individual tuition on all of the standard doubling
instruments, and there are opportunities to work with Baroque and
Classical instrument specialists. We also provide regular reed
making classes as appropriate.
As a woodwind player, you will be put into at least one chamber
group, which could be a quartet of saxophones, flutes or clarinets,
a wind quintet, or a baroque trio. We also encourage you to work
with students from other departments to create different
instrumental combinations. There are also a number of larger
ensembles like flute, saxophone and clarinet choirs as well as the
departmental flagship, Chamber Winds, which has performed on Radio
3 and at the Purcell Room. In all cases, you will receive
professional coaching and many opportunities to perform in
public.
The main College ensembles including the RWCMD Symphony
Orchestra and Opera and Millennium Ensemble. These ensembles
perform regularly and entry to these is based partly on audition.
The RWCMD Wind Orchestra has performed at the Cheltenham Festival
and for the National Saxophone Congress with soloists including
Claude Delangle and Otis Murphy. Recent programmes have included
Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Winds, the Symphonie Funebre et
Triomphale by Berlioz, and the Holst Suites as well as more modern
repertoire by Gorb, Ellerby, and Maconchy. In addition, the
orchestra regularly gives first performances.