“Perhaps you’ve never tried to play bassoon in a symphony orchestra while you were eight-and-three-quarter months pregnant,” writes Lawrence Toppman in Tuesday’s (9/3) Charlotte Observer (N.C.). “You haven’t even wondered whether the thunder of brass right behind your head might be having an adverse effect on the unborn baby. But Olivia Oh did. ‘I asked my doctor and found out that wouldn’t be a problem,’ says the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s principal bassoonist…. Oh’s ‘mamabassoonist’ Instagram account defines her first as a mother, then as a musician, then as a woman of faith…. A 32-year-old mama bassoonist with children aged 23 months and 7 months faces different challenges at home: Finding quiet time and practice time for herself, remembering not to leave sharp tools around their SouthPark apartment when cutting reeds for her instrument…. Oh and her husband, who frequently travels to State Farm headquarters in Indiana and other cities, must work out a complex schedule of child-minding around their two jobs. ‘Going to work is actually kind of a rest for me,’ she says, laughing. ‘It’s my job, but I’m having fun. I come away from it with more energy, not less.’ ”
Posted September 4, 2019
