Oboist Gaia Saetermoe-Howard and Tempesta di Mare’s Coordinator of Marketing & Administration, Rachel Romean, met up for a chat about playing baroque oboe, curating a recital program, and music for double reeds from Jamaica to Calcutta, India.
How long have you been playing the oboe?
I started playing the oboe when I was 9 years old. As a child, I was a multi-instrumentalist and played everything from electric guitar to jazz saxophone to highland bagpipes. I was always searching for a new instrument to learn. My mom was an avid listener of many great oboists (including my former baroque oboe teacher Gonzalo Ruiz), so she suggested that I add oboe to my roster. Over time, I fell in love with the instrument and it became my voice. While an undergraduate student at the Eastman School of Music, I had the opportunity to study with Philadelphia-based baroque oboist Geoffrey Burgess. At the same time, I was studying archaeology at the University of Rochester. In my lessons with Geoffrey, I learned how historical study can intertwine with musical expression in exciting and fruitful ways. Playing historical oboes is a form of experimental archaeology: through the instruments, we learn about the past.
What inspired you to create the Virtuosic Oboe program?
I shaped the Virtuosic Oboe program around a small seed: transcriptions of 18th-century Indian music collected by William Bird, an Irish musician living in Calcutta. Having just returned from a research trip in India, where I was learning to play an incredibly virtuosic indigenous double reed instrument called the koļ, I was curious how these pieces might translate to the baroque oboe. Then, I started to explore other works that not only speak across cultural and geographic lines, but also bring out the unique virtuosity and expressivity of the oboe. In building the program, I brought together works from around the world that allow the oboe to reach into new dimensions, combining virtuosity and cultural complexity.
What should we especially listen for in this program?
My new arrangement of Corelli’s Violin Sonata in D minor, “La Folia”, is a work that is particularly meaningful to me. When I first heard this sonata as a high school student, it exposed me to the passion and raw emotions expressed in Baroque music. Historical performance gives us a unique window into not just the sounds of the past, but also the emotions of the past, and this piece exemplifies that for me.
What is “La Folia”?
Click HERE and check out the 400 year obsession with this bass line from Corelli to Beethoven, Liszt, and Brittney Spears
The final work on the program, Red Suit Suite, is also a highlight because it concludes with two modern world premieres from 18th-century Jamaica. These pieces were first performed at annual Christmastime festivals, called Jonkonnu,in 1775 and 1776. Each year, troupes of Black women performers called the Set Girls composed and choreographed original songs and dances for the festival, and these two short excerpts are some of the only surviving transcriptions of works by 18th-century Jamaican women composers. I’m looking forward to sharing these examples of the rich and multifaceted cultural forms that Afro-Jamaican women created and shaped.
What do you hope audiences take away from this performance?
This performance is all about how the world of music has always been connected. Even though French Baroque music might sound very different from Italian Baroque music, these styles have always existed in conversation with one another. I hope that audiences can listen to these musical conversations and discover how national styles may have inspired each other. My friends know my oft-repeated quip: “the 18th century didn’t just happen in Europe!” I hope that audiences can also experience how music from India and Jamaica responded to and influenced European music, even 300 years ago.
You have a background in musicology and scholarship. How do your experiences as a musicologist relate to your historical performance career?
I’m currently a PhD student in Historical Musicology at Harvard University, where I am working on my dissertation about 17th and 18th century Jamaican music. While most of my research now focuses on Atlantic exchanges and historical Black music, I also study English opera, Scottish music and print culture, and German Lutheran music. This research helps me situate the music I play, whether it’s a Handel opera or a Bach cantata, in its cultural, economic, and social contexts. When I perform, I imagine myself speaking not just to the modern listeners before me, but also to listeners from the past, whose experiences overlap with our own in more ways than we might realize.
As I mentioned, I also have a background in archaeology and material history, which closely intertwines with my love for historical instruments. As a performer of baroque oboes and recorders, I see my instruments not just as tools of my trade and a means of musical expression, but also as material artifacts that teach me about the past. Playing period instruments can tell us so much about how past musicians engaged with engineering, conceived of sound, and interacted with the material world. When we perform on Baroque instruments, premiere a piece that hasn’t been heard in centuries, and develop new ideas of how to play Baroque music, we are actively creating and shaping history. It’s inspiring to be a part of this history-making with my colleagues at Tempesta.
What do you like to do when you’re not playing the oboe?
I have many houseplants and love taking care of them daily. My living room has become half jungle and half instruments, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Yoga is also a passion of mine that helps me with my breath control and mental focus. Even when I’m on the road, I always find some time in my day to ground myself with yoga practice. Of course, my PhD studies take up quite a bit of my time when I’m not performing or rehearsing, but once my daily music practicing, reading, and writing is done, you can find me curled up on the couch with a good book and a pot of tea.
What are your upcoming projects (besides Virtuosic Oboe, of course!)?
In February, I’m excited for a month of Bach! I’ll be playing his famous solo oboe cantata Ich habe genug in Boston, where I am based, and later his St. John Passion with the Providence Baroque Orchestra in Rhode Island. Some other projects coming up are a French program with Apollo’s Fire, Bach’s B-minor Mass with the Sebastians, and St. Matthew Passion with Musica Angelica in my hometown of Los Angeles. This June, I will be teaching Baroque oboe and recorders at New England Conservatory’s Early Music Institute.
Where can we find you online or on social media?
You can read about my musical and research projects on my website, gaiashoboe.com. I also post updates on my Instagram page @gaia_sh. Can’t wait to connect with you more!
Gaia Saetermoe-Howard will be joined by harpsichordist Dongsok Shin for Virtuosic Oboe, coming up in Philadelphia January 17-19, 2025.
