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Above: The musicians of PACO’s senior orchestra. Left: Karla Ekholm and her beloved bassoon.
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Veteran bassoonist brings impressive résumé to Palo Alto student concert
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arla Ekholm has bassoon music in her bones. It started with her hands. When she was growing up in Texas and all the kids in school were starting to play musical instruments, a teacher took one look at her and said: “You have big hands. You should play the bassoon.” “Of course, my hands haven’t grown since then,” Ekholm said. Still, she developed a lasting love for the statuesque woodwind instrument. Benjamin Simon, who conducts Ekholm in the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, where she’s principal bassoonist, says that sentiment seems visceral and visual. “She exudes a joy in playing,” he said. “Even when she’s sitting in her chair, she dances to the music.”
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by Rebecca Wallace Simon also heads the student Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, where he regularly builds concert programs around solos by favorite visiting professional musicians. For the March 10 performance at Palo Alto’s Cubberley Theatre, he’s planned a program around Ekholm and her bassoon. Ekholm will solo with the orchestra in Jean Françaix’s “Divertimento for Bassoon and Strings.” PACO will also perform Henry Purcell’s “An English Suite,” and the “First Suite for Strings” by the late northern California contemporary composer Lou Harrison. The performing group is the senior orchestra of PACO, which has five chamber orchestras, each with about 25 members. As a bassoonist, Ekholm doesn’t get many offers to perform with string-heavy student
orchestras. In fact, this is her first time. She says she’s been very pleased with the rehearsal experience so far at PACO. “These guys are so disciplined,” she said. “They take a little longer to get to where they’re going,” she added, and a few more rehearsals are needed, but it’s “pretty similar to playing with a professional orchestra.” Ekholm is also pleased with the Françaix piece she’ll be playing. “It’s not ostentatiously showy as far as technique, but it’s a tricky little piece for the bassoon,” she said. “The whole thing is you can’t show that to the audience. It is so charming and light and bubbly and just refreshing, so I need to go tripping over everything so lightly.” As Ekholm has spent more time with the “Divertimento,” thinking about the work
and its French neoclassical composer, who died in 1997, she finds the notes conjuring up a story in her mind. She imagines a finely drawn cartoon character coming from the rural provinces to Paris for the first time and exploring its wonders. It’s all part of her personal creative approach to this work. “I’ve lived with this piece and I have a very definite sense of the character and what he’s doing,” she said. As Ekholm prepares for the PACO concert, she adds the endeavor to her usual mix of playing with various groups and on various stages, driving to and from her home in San Francisco. Crisscrossing the Bay Area for gigs is nothing new to her. (continued on page 26)