The interview below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
So, tell me how you came to the bassoon. You told me your dad played the bassoon, but did you start with a different instrument?
No, actually, it is a very funny story. I was born in Mexico City. And my father was originally from Spain. He immigrated to Mexico in 1939. He was born in 1913. This is going to sound very strange, but my father's mother was born in 1874.
Yes, my father was the last of nine, and his mother was 39 when he was born, and only three survived at that time. My father also had a rough upbringing because of the Spanish flu in 1918. He was 5 years old,0 and his father, my grandfather, passed away in that flu epidemic.
And my grandmother could not sustain them on her own. There was a school in Madrid that took on kids, sort of like an orphanage, but it was a school that gave them full room and board. And so, my mother took my uncle and my father there, and she stayed with my aunt. And they stayed there for basically the rest of their lives, until they turned 18, because my grandmother passed away.
It was a sad story. But anyway, the thing is, at school, at some point, they gave them the choice to either go into military service or study music. And my father, of course, chose to study music. And he started with the clarinet. And then after he saw how many clarinet players there were out there, he said, “There is no way I'm going to make it,” so he chose the bassoon, and that's how he started to make his living when he was young.
Then the Civil War broke out in in Spain. He was playing in a military band for the Republican side. And toward the end of the war, when the Republican side was obviously losing, they were able to cross the border into France and they stayed there. It was March 1939, and it was very cold on the Mediterranean side. It was a beach in a place called Saint-Cyprien.
And at that time, there were over 100,000 refugees there with nothing. There was no water, no sanitary conditions. And he spent a few months there until the Quakers in England paid for three ships to transport refugees from this camp to Mexico, which was accepting refugees from the Civil War.
There were three ships that sailed, and because he was a musician, and he was playing in a band at that time, they said, “Oh, you guys are musicians. Come onto the ship. We need music.” And that was his ticket to Mexico.
He said, “We had no idea where we were going, we just wanted to get out of there.” And halfway into the trip, they say, “Oh, we're going to Mexico, and they speak Spanish there.” So, my father arrived in Mexico. He was playing the clarinet, and he knew how to play the bassoon, and he bought himself a bassoon and started his career as a bassoon player.
And then when I was born, the story is that when I was 2 or 3 years old, he was playing in the National Symphony in Mexico City, and they went on tour to Europe. He went when they were in Germany, which is the place where they made most of the bassoons at that time. He bought a bassoon for his 2-year-old son, and he kept it in a closet. And every time, on my birthday, every year, he used to bring it out and show it to me and say, “You know, someday you might be able to play this.”
And when I was 6 or 7, I said, “Can I try it? Can I try it?” And he said, “No, no, you're still too young.” He kept the carrot in front of me. And when I turned 11, he said, “OK, we can start.” And at that time, I liked it at first. And then, of course, like any 11-year-old, I wanted to go out and play soccer or whatever.
But at the time, after I'd been with the instrument for about a year, there was a movement in Mexico to create the first-ever National Youth Orchestra, and this was advertised nationally.
And so, my father said, “Fernando, Fernando, you have to audition for this. This would be awesome.” And so, we practiced and practiced for about a month and a half. This was for kids from 10 until 18, and I auditioned, and I ended up being the principal bassoon in the first-ever National Youth Orchestra in Mexico, and I remember attending the first rehearsal. Of course, I had been to many rehearsals and concerts with my dad, and so I knew what this was about. But being a part of it, I said, “This is great. I want to do this.”
That's how I came to play the bassoon, even though my father had in mind teaching me the instrument just as a Plan B in case something went wrong with my schooling and I couldn't be something else, he said, “Well, at least you will know how to play the bassoon.”
It's interesting to me, because my dad was on the radio, and I wanted to be a dentist. I wanted to be a lawyer, but early on, at least, I could hear my dad's voice in my head. Did you ever have a time when you heard your dad's sound in your head when you were making music?
Well, I remember him playing and practicing, and you know that those memories will forever be in my head. Like every other parent, he wanted the best for his kids. I remember I stayed in this youth orchestra for about two years, and then after that, when I was 16 years old, I won my first professional job in Mexico. And this was kind of tricky, because I was still in high school, and I had to do both things, but I remember at the time, he was so happy, because it was in Mexico.
Most of the orchestras at that time, at least, were government-supported. So, if you became a member of an orchestra, you were basically a government employee, and after 30 years, you can retire with full government benefits and everything.
And he says, “Fernando, you are going to be able to retire at 46!” which was a few decades back. So, I would be retired had I stayed in Mexico.
But then, I met an American bassoon player that was playing in the National Symphony in Mexico. His name was Neil MacDonald, and he came to sub with our orchestra, and he sounded beautiful. And I said, “Can I have some lessons with you?” And he said, “Of course!” So, I started to go have lessons with him, and about a month or so in, he said, “You know what, Fernando, you should go and study with my teacher.”
He was a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and he single-handedly helped me to fill out the paperwork, and it was thanks to him that I was able to come and study in the States. And that was incredible. I did my bachelor's and master's at the Cleveland Institute. And after that, I did a one-year postgraduate degree at Juilliard School.
After that, I was trying to stay in the in the United States, but, of course, it was impossible, so I got a job as principal bassoon in the National Opera in Portugal, in Lisbon.
I spent two years there. And after that, there was an opening in an orchestra in Asturias in Spain. And since I have family in Madrid, I said, “Oh, that would be awesome.” So, I went and auditioned, and I got that job there, and I stayed for two years. I probably would have stayed there the rest of my life. It was a beautiful place. Asturias is a region in the north of Spain, in the center of the peninsula in the upper north, and the capital is Oviedo. This orchestra was based in Oviedo, and it had been a situation where there was an orchestra there before, and they disbanded the whole orchestra, and they made auditions for a brand new, full orchestra there.
I couldn't audition in Spain because that was only for the Spanish people, and I had to go to Amsterdam. So I was in Lisbon, and I said, “I can drive to Spain and audition there, if you want,” and they said, “No, no, no, no, no, you are international. You must go all the way to Amsterdam.” So, I went and auditioned there, and I got the job as principal bassoon there.
I loved my time in Asturias, and I would have stayed there the rest of my life, but at the time, a friend of ours came and said, “You know, Fernando, there is this orchestra in Sarasota, and I think you would love it there.” And I said, “Where is Sarasota?”
I remember flying out of Oviedo. I took a 4:30 [a.m.] flight to Madrid, and Madrid to JFK [New York], JFK to Sarasota. I arrived in Sarasota that day, at like 3:30 p.m., which was like 9:30 p.m. my time, and the audition was the next morning. I took a cab the next day to the symphony center, which was near Van Wezel [Performing Arts Hall]. And I remember seeing this purple building and saying, “Oh, my gosh.”
I auditioned, and I got the job, and that was 33 years ago.
And then a year after I got the job, my wife, Betsy, arrived in the orchestra. We met, then we got married, and we have two beautiful girls. Our oldest daughter is going to be 25 in December, and she's finalizing her second bachelor's degree in nursing. She's doing it at USF here in Sarasota.
Our little one is doing her master's in Nashville. I have to say, both of our daughters, when they were growing up were both competitive swimmers. My daughter first got her bachelor's from University of Miami, swimming for the swim team there, and our youngest daughter was swimming for Vanderbilt in Nashville. So they are both doing great.
And I have to say, despite the fact that I would have loved to stay in Spain, the fact that I took that fork in the road and came to Sarasota has been the most amazing ride in my life.
Well, you and I would never have met if not for that Sarasota Musica Viva thing, so I'm grateful for that. I just wanted to ask you, this sticks out of my mind so distinctly, that you had set your reeds on something and it was just like a crushing thing, because it was a box of reeds, and they fell. And I thought, “Oh, my word.” What does that mean? Because, I mean, I don't know how long it takes you to craft those reeds and how important they are to what you do?
Yeah, well, for the people that are listening and haven't seen a bassoon before, bassoon is a double-reed instrument. What that means is that it requires a mouthpiece that is made with two pieces of bamboo put together. The clarinet uses a single reed against a plastic mouthpiece, and the double reeds – the bassoons and the oboes – use two very fine pieces of bamboo put together.
I make my reeds from actual tubes of bamboo. I purchase the tubes of bamboo by the pound, and I cut them up, and I basically start the whole process from there.
You can buy the cane already processed, and it saves you time, but you lose control of all the different variables that exist there. So it takes about, I would say, six or seven hours to craft. You can actually make six or seven reeds in that time, but the thing is, of those, the ratio of great reeds is about a 30 to 40 percent success rate, and the rest have to go into the trash bin.
So yes, when you have a box full of good reeds, it's like a treasure, because you know all the time and what it takes to get one of those.
And yes, there is a joke about Leonard Sharrow, a very famous bassoon player with the NBC Orchestra under [Arturo] Toscanini. He was talking to his students, and he said, “OK, I'm going to show you how to know when you have a good reed.” And he had three or four reeds, and he put them on the corner of a table and then swept his hand and threw them all to the floor. And he said, “The good ones will always break.” Anyway, when mine fell, I was like, “Oh, no!”
Tell me about the bassoon. To me, it is probably the most mysterious instrument in all the orchestral instruments because you don't see it that often, unless you're in the balcony. You really don't get a good perspective of it because of the placement, unless there's a solo or something. What role does the bassoon play in the orchestra and what does it take to master the instrument?
The bassoon came about in the 1500s and it evolved. At that time, they used to build instruments in families. Like the recorder, there's a tiny recorder, there's a tenor recorder, alto, they get bigger. And so the bassoon came from something like that. It was built as a counterpart of the cello. Like in a string quartet, you have the violins, which are the high voices, you have the viola, which is the middle voice, and then you have the cello, which is the bass voice. In the winds, the bassoon serves the same purpose.
The flute and the oboe are the two higher voices. Then the clarinet is sort of the middle of the road, and then the bassoon provides the bass. From the family that the bassoon came about, there were two survivors. There was the bassoon, and the bigger brother is the contrabassoon, which is an octave lower than the bassoon, and is probably the lowest instrument in the orchestra. I think it goes lower than the tuba.
So the bassoon was basically made to be the low voice in the wind section, and it is hard to see. It looks a little bit like a bazooka because it's basically bent in its lowest part so that we can play it. But it's a 7-, almost 8-foot-long tube, and it's bent so that we can play it, and it has a range of about 4½ octaves.
I would say it's slightly harder to learn than any other woodwind instrument, just because it's the only woodwind instrument that requires all 10 fingers. If you see the flute or the oboe or the clarinet, they always have one thumb free.
The bassoon doesn't offer that advantage, so we have to use all of the fingers. It sometimes makes it quite difficult, but it's a lovely instrument. It has a tenor-baritone range, and I love the instrument. I wouldn't do anything else.
You have the Sarasota Orchestra, but do you do chamber performances?
The Sarasota Orchestra has a very interesting model because we offer not only the big orchestra, the masterworks concert, the subscription concerts. We offer seven series of those per year. We also offer chamber orchestra and chamber music concerts. As members of the orchestra, we are also part of the Sarasota Wind Quintet. From the orchestra, there is a Sarasota Wind Quintet, Sarasota String Quartet, Sarasota Brass Quintet and another Sarasota String Quartet, which is a piano and string trio. We offer basically everything from small-group chamber music to big orchestras.
But besides that, a lot of the musicians from the orchestra go and collaborate with other organizations like Key Chorale. Or maybe other orchestras that need extra musicians, like The Florida Orchestra or the Naples Philharmonic, if we have the time.
And I cannot tell you how lucky we feel in the organization for having gotten him [music director Giancarlo Guerrero] as our new boss, because he is one-of-a-kind. He is an incredible musician. He hears everything. He knows what he wants, and he does everything in his power to get it, which is really refreshing. And after five seasons without artistic leadership, we could not be happier to have him at the helm right now.
WSMR's Sean McBride contributed to this report
