William Bennett, principal oboe of the San Francisco SO, collapsed on stage midway through the Strauss concerto. He was taken to hospital, where his condition is unspecified. More here.
Fuller report here.
Just in: San Francisco soloist suffers stroke in mid-concerto
February 24, 2013 by
It took 20 minutes for paramedics to arrive?
Sad news, and I wish him a full recovery. I heard him play many times when I was a music student in high school in San Francisco. He is a very fine artist.
Apparently he had 9 months off in 2004/05 to fight cancer. I wish him all the best for a full and speedy recovery.
Horrible!Mr.Bennet, a truly wonderful oboist,already fought a brave and victorious battle against cancer some
years ago.
For those, like me, who are not familiar with the term ‘guarded condition’, it sounds as though from this we can be cautiously optimistic.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_guarded_condition_mean
Very tragic news. I wish him full recovery and return on his position.
William Bennett, long time principal oboist of the San Francisco Symphony, describes the difficulties of the piece:
One of the challenges of the Strauss Concerto is that the oboe voice is a constant ingredient and requires an air supply that Strauss might have imagined easily available following his experiments with the Vienna Philharmonic and the compressed-air hoses he recommends for his Alpine Symphony.
Strauss wrote these long phrases in the concerto with Bernhard Samuel’s aerophone (or aerophor) in mind. This device was patented in 1912 to help wind instrument players.
A small bellows, worked by one foot, communicated by means of a tube within the corner of the mouth of the player, leaving him free to carry on his normal breathing process through his nose whilst his mouth is supplied with the air required for his instrument by means of the bellows.
[Steinberg, Michael. The Concerto. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.]