Other bassoonists

There was a bassoon gathering set up at the university by a local pro this weekend. I was looking forward to it, but with some trepidation. This would, after all, be my first impression for many of the serious players in town. I played in the opening recital, a piece my son wrote. I think people liked it, mostly from the novelty of new music, plus the father-son story and the fact that he's a kid. I didn't play it particularly well, missing a bunch of attacks and having at least one giant out-of-control squeak. The pianist did a credible job, though, with no rehearsal. After the recital there were ensembles. This began a little confused, since there were divisions by skill level, which we were supposed to organize ourselves. Since the "intermediate" room looked rather full, I ended up going into the "advanced" room, which started rather empty, but ended up with a senior performance major, another local pro, and me. I picked the third part on everything (Weissenborn trios, something I can't remember, and a Take Five arrangement) and did my best to keep up and not get lost, even when I was splatting every low attack and muffing every run. It was a ton of fun, even if I was low man on the totem pole, and I felt that playing with people better than me immediately made me sound better. Maybe that's just because I got to listen to their playing, but hopefully I was adjusting and leveling up a bit too. What they thought of me I have no idea, everyone is always extremely polite, but for better or worse, I've now made my first impression.