Bohemian Rhapsody Festival: Bohemian Rhapsodies

Jonathan Fischer joined the Houston Symphony as principal oboe in September 2012 and was invited to join the faculty of the University of Houston in September 2014. Prior to his appointment with the Houston Symphony, Fischer served as associate principal oboe with the San Francisco Symphony for nine seasons. He has also held positions with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Savannah Symphony, and the New World Symphony. Fischer has performed as a guest principal with many of the nation’s leading orchestras including the Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Louis and Atlanta Symphonies, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He has performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Grant Park Symphony, New World Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony. Fischer currently teaches at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music and Texas Music Festival. He has taught and performed at the Aspen Music Festival and the Oberlin Conservatory. He has given masterclasses at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the San Francisco Conservatory, Rice University, and University of Michigan, and has been a coach at the New World Symphony. He holds a degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Richard Woodhams. A native of South Carolina, Fischer now enjoys living in the Heights with his dog, a Louisiana Catahoula mix.

Christian Schubert joined the Houston Symphony as Second Clarinetist in 1996, appointed by then music director Christoph Eschenbach. A native of Burbank, California, Mr. Schubert studied with Kalman Bloch (Principal Clarinet, Los Angeles Philharmonic) for seven years before moving to Chicago to study with Robert Marcellus at Northwestern University, where he received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music performance. As a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Mr. Schubert also studied with Larry Combs of the Chicago Symphony. Prior to arriving in Houston, Mr. Schubert played extensively with numerous Chicago area ensembles including the Lyric Opera Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, The Chicago Ensemble, as well as performing commercial jingle session work in the Chicago studios. He also served as the second clarinetist and E-flat clarinetist with the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago for 17 seasons between 1991 and 2016. Active as a chamber musician as well as a recitalist, he has been a featured performer at the Schlesswig Holstein Musik Festival, the Mainly Mozart Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival. Well known for his success in teaching young people, he has served on the music faculties of North Park College in Chicago and the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. He is also the co-founder of Houston Clarinet Camp and has presented masterclasses across the country. A dedicated pedagogue, he has maintained a private instruction studio at home every year of his professional career as well as serving as a lead teacher in several music education initiatives sponsored by the Houston Symphony. In his time away from performing and teaching, Mr. Schubert owns and operates a recording engineering company, Schubert Recording Services, specializing in the quality digital recording of classical music. Mr. Schubert exclusively performs and records on Buffet clarinets, and on D’Addario Reserve Classic reeds, and has been a Performing Artist & Clinician for both companies since 2016.

Principal bassoonist Rian Craypo has been with the Houston Symphony since 2007. Born in Virginia, she moved to Texas at 10 months of age and grew up east of Austin in a small intentional community. After studying at the University of Texas at Austin with Kristin Wolfe Jensen, she attended Rice University, where she received her master’s degree under former Houston Symphony Principal Bassoon Benjamin Kamins. In 2001, she was awarded a Federation of German/American Clubs Scholarship, which led to a year of study and performances in Germany and was a finalist in the Gillet-Fox International Bassoon Competition in both 2004 and 2006. Rian serves on the board of Third Space Music, which presents Houston Symphony musicians several times a year in intimate and engaging chamber settings. Rian is also the author of a book about bassoon reed making, published in 2017. She and her husband Sean have three children.

Ian Mayton, a native of Durham, North Carolina, was appointed fourth horn of the Houston Symphony by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada in November 2014. Mayton has performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony. After completing his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Mayton spent a year in the Master of Music program at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music studying with William VerMeulen.

Tassie and Constantine S. Nicandros Chair Principal Bass Clarinet Alexander Potiomkin joined the Houston Symphony in October 2012. A native of Ukraine, he moved with his family to Israel in 1991, where he attended the Rubin Jerusalem Academy of Music, while appearing as a regular substitute clarinetist with the Israel Philharmonic. He came to Houston in 1995 to study at Rice University and earned his master of music degree in 1997. Alexander appeared as substitute principal clarinet of the Alabama Symphony on its Carnegie Hall tour in spring 2012. He also performed as guest principal clarinet with the Kansas City Symphony and as a soloist with the Tel Aviv Symphony and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has participated in the Mozart, Bellingham, Blossom, and Tanglewood music festivals. Equally committed to teaching, Alexander maintains a large, private studio. His main teachers include David Peck and David Weber, with additional studies with Michael Wayne and Mark Nuccio on clarinet and Chester Rowell and Ben Freimuth on bass clarinet.

Colin Gatwood was born in Cleveland, Ohio but grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his father was principal oboist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and his mother, a violinist, was a freelance musician and teacher. He began his musical studies on the piano at age 5, but by the time he was nine, he had begun taking oboe lessons from his father. Gatwood is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. His first orchestra job was with the Pittsburgh Symphony, playing second oboe for four years. From there, he went on to join the Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra in Mexico, and in 1991, he won the position of second oboe with the Houston Symphony.

Associate Principal Bassoonist Isaac Schultz, a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins. While at Rice, Isaac was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West and the Aspen Music School. In 2015, he was a prize winner at the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition and a finalist at the Coleman Competition. Away from music, he enjoys rock climbing and other outdoor activities.

Winner of Third Prize at the 2013 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Boson was named as one of Canada’s “30 under 30 Top Classical Musicians of 2015” by CBC Radio-Canada. He is a recipient of the “Prix Joseph-Rouleau” at the 2010 Montreal International Violin Competition as well as a top 25 candidate at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and is a winner of Canada’s prestigious Sylva Geber Foundation Award. Additionally, he is a two-time winner of Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank loan. Mo served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2017 and is now a member of the Houston Symphony. He will forever be a student of mentors Keqiang Li and Paul Kantor, and he currently performs on a violin by MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Joseph Curtin.

A native of Taiwan, Annie Chen began her musical studies at age 6 on piano and at age 8 on violin. At age 14, she moved to the United States to continue her music education at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts and the New England Conservatory Preparatory Program in Boston. Chen has been a participant of numerous summer music festivals including the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Music Academy of the West, where she was a winner of the 2011 concerto competition, and the Tanglewood Music Center. She has toured with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and was a regular member of Discovery Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber orchestra that provides outreach concerts to inner-city schools with no music programs. She has also been featured as a soloist with the Dorchester Symphony Orchestra. Chen holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston and a master’s degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she held the Shepherd School Distinguished Fellowship in Violin. Her principal teachers have included Lynn Chang, James Buswell, and Kathleen Winkler.