Bend Pops Orchestra’s March 19 concert will feature oboist Ryan Zwahlen performing Bellini’s Oboe Concerto. Ryan is a professional musician, music educator, and entrepreneur living in Central Oregon.
Ryan’s musical career includes a long list of professional credits performing on oboe, English horn, and flute. He has performed with the LA Philharmonic, performed and recorded with the San Diego Symphony, performed with numerous groups throughout the West Coast area, and currently subs with the Eugene Symphony, the Rogue Valley Symphony, Portland Opera, and Portland Ballet. He presently serves as Principal Oboe of the Central Oregon Symphony, the Central Oregon Chamber Orchestra, and Opera Bend.
Ryan’s devotion to music education is evident throughout his career. He served as Music Department Chair and faculty member at the Idyllwild Arts Academy and has presented flute and oboe masterclasses at several western colleges. He created the MidPeninsula Music Academy in Redwood City, CA, and serves on the faculty of YMA (Young Musicians and Artists) in Salem. He has established a studio of oboe and flute students here in Bend, where his students perform in the Central Oregon Youth Orchestra, the Cascade Winds, the Bend Pops Orchestra, and several area chamber groups.
Ryan is particularly excited to serve in the newly created position of Education and Outreach Coordinator with the Central Oregon Symphony Association. He developed the new Music Masters Program, bringing in professional musicians to teach seminars and masterclasses that culminate in public recitals. He manages the expanding Music in Public Places program of free public chamber music concerts, schedules the Symphony Stars! Program demonstrating orchestral instruments in area schools, and coordinates the symphony’s Virginia Riggs Children’s Concert and instrument “petting zoo”, giving kids hands-on exposure to making music.
Ryan will be performing Vincenzo Bellini’s Oboe Concerto in E-flat Major. Bellini (1801-1835) was an Italian opera composer known for his long-flowing melodic lines, and the oboe concerto is his only surviving purely instrumental work. The concerto is noted for its operatic qualities and bel canto themes, where the solo instrument part is written to give an effect similar to the human voice.
The concert will also feature arrangements of Holst’s Jupiter – Bringer of Jollity from The Planets, Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Paul Desmond’s jazz standard Take Five, Richard Meyer’s rousing Millennium, Leroy Anderson’s Blue Tango, and music from the Warner Bros. Wonder Woman soundtrack. The concert will be held at 2:00PM on Sunday, March 19, 2023, at Trinity Lutheran Church and School in Bend.
For more information on the Pops, visit BendPops.org. More information on Ryan can be found at RyanZwahlen.com.