William Short

William Short was appointed Principal Bassoon of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2012. He previously served in the same capacity with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and has also performed with the Houston and Detroit Symphonies and the Philadelphia Orchestra. William has performed as soloist with the Vermont and Delaware Symphonies, the New York Classical Players, and the Strings Festival Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Gotham Wind Quintet and is a regular performer with Camerata Pacifica and Dolce Suono chamber music series.

A dedicated teacher, William serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Temple University, and is a Valade Fellow at Interlochen Arts Camp. In addition, he is a Visiting Faculty member at The Tianjin Juilliard School and has held visiting guest positions at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has presented classes at colleges and conservatories around the world and at conferences of the International Double Reed Society, for which he served as a board member from 2017-2021.

William has performed and taught at the Lake Champlain, Lake Tahoe, Mostly Mozart, Stellenbosch (South Africa), Strings, and Twickenham Festivals. An occasional arranger, editor, and composer, his works have been published by the Theodore Presser Company and TrevCo-Varner Music.

Committed to forging connections between audiences and performers, William's articles on the subject have been lauded not only by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, but also by noted arts consultant Drew McManus and prolific cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht.

William received his Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Daniel Matsukawa and Bernard Garfield, and his Master of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins. He attended festivals including the Music Academy of the West, Pacific Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and the Verbier Festival. Additional major teachers have included Jeanine Attaway, Kristin Wolfe Jensen, and William Lewis.

Replenishing

June 16, 2015  /  William Short

I’ve previously mentioned my fondness for taking breaks after busy periods of preparation and performance. In day-to-day practicing and reed-making, hard work must be balanced with equally “intense” relaxation. This is also true on a larger scale, and given that I played my last notes for some time just a few days ago, this seems like a good time to discuss the benefits of putting the instrument away for extended periods.

I love taking time off. I just think it’s healthy, not only physically, but mentally. As hard as I try to make it otherwise, my day-to-day musical successes and failures inevitably come to define how I perceive myself over time. I find myself measuring my self-worth by my musical progress, which is fundamentally nonlinear, inconsistent, and subjective.

By contrast, when I allow myself time away from the instrument, I am reminded what it’s like to be a “real person.” I relearn that the instrument does not define who I am—that I’m a person separate from the trials and tribulations of making music. And when I eventually return to the instrument, after a brief period of awkward reacquaintance, I find that tension that gradually built up over time has dissipated and my passion for making music has been replenished.

After all, who doesn’t treasure the rare occasion in which we can fly without taking our instrument along? Who doesn’t enjoy taking a night (or a week) to actually socialize, particularly with (perish the thought) non-musicians? Who doesn’t feel a palpable sense of relief when we release ourselves from the grip of practice guilt?

Of course, everyone is different. For a lot of people, “taking time off” means practicing a little bit every day. Perhaps you like to only play every other day. Different instruments have different physical demands, which affects the amount of time those respective instrumentalists can comfortably take off without losing significant ground. Regardless of the specific form a break takes, I do feel strongly that taking time to relax and replenish is vital to one’s mental and musical health.

I’m very much looking forward to my bassoon’s reemergence when I’m refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges of the rest of the summer and the season to come. But for now, I’m delighted to bid it farewell.

(I’ll keep blogging, though.)

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tags / Relaxation