JAMES JETER, D.M.A.

JAMESJETER is a professional freelance bassoonist in New York City and has an international reputation as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and recording artist.  He performs principal bassoon with the New Jersey Festival Orchestra and has performed with various orchestras in the New York/New Jersey area, including Teatro Grattaciela Opera, Cecilia Chorus, Mid-Atlantic Opera, NY Gilbert & Sullivan Players, Metropolitan Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York, St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Alvin Ailey Dance Co., New York City Symphony, Colorado Music Festival, Twentieth Century Unlimited (Santa Fe, NM) , Double Entendre Ensemble, various Broadway musicals and orchestras abroad (Italy and Switzerland). He also performed principal  bassoon for 'Star Wars in Concert' in 2010 for the orchestra's international tour to Mexico, Canada and the continental U.S.. He currently is on the Chamber Music Coaching faculty at the 92nd Street YMHA (NYC). In June, he will teach/perform at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp again, his twentieth summer at the Camp.

 
The Carnegie Hall Corporation sponsored him in a solo recital as part of its Debuts and Encores Series and he has been a featured concerto soloist with the Arcady Music Festival (ME), Connecticut Chamber Orchestra, Atlantic Sinfonietta (NYC) and the Biel Symphony (Switzerland).
 
In 1983, he founded the Virtuosi Quintet, which toured nationally through Columbia Artists Management. The quintet recorded the music of American composer, Robert Baksa, for Musical Heritage Society and Capstone Records. Mr. Jeter recorded a solo album for Crystal Records and can be heard as principal
bassoonist for the Atlantic Sinfonietta on CDs released by Koch International Classics.
 
Mr. Jeter earned a Bachelor of Music (University of Texas at Austin), Master of Music (The Juilliard School) and Doctor of Musical Arts (SUNY Stony Brook).  His teachers have included Milan Turkovic, Harold Goltzer, James Dickie, Sylvia Kushner, Carmine Caruso and Dennis Godburn.
 
He has performed recitals and chamber music at the International Double Reed Society's Conferences at Northwestern University (IL), Ithaca College (NY) and Buenos Aires (Argentina).
 
At home with contemporary as well as baroque and classical repertoire, he performed the premiere of a solo work written for him by American composer Andrew Thomas at Northwestern University. Mr. Jeter worked with Maitre Jean Francaix on the composer's Divertissement for Bassoon & Strings. Out of this
collaboration, he wrote an article for the Double Reed; he also gave the New York premiere of Francaix's Concerto for Bassoon (piano version); (Bassoonist Harry Searing later gave the official American premiere with strings.)  The American composer, James Lahti, has dedicated his Woodwind Quintet to Mr. Jeter.
 
An Affiliate Artist at Sarah Lawrence College, he also has been a member of the adjunct instrumental music faculty at the Calhoun School and has periodically (substitute) taught at the Mannes School of Music Prep Division (NYC), along with his yearly summer teaching/performing at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in western Michigan.  He was invited in the summer of 2001 to perform as Visiting Assistant Professor of
Music at Indiana University (Bloomington). 

For more information, please contact: chleojet@yahoo.com
Also, please visit the Virtuosi Quintet's Website: http//www.virtuosiquintet.com 

"Mr. Jeter proved a splendid player, with dapper phrasing, a diaphanous lower register, oboe-sweet high notes and a certain Mephistophelean elegance."
                           New York Times
 
 
"James Jeter is most definitely a talented young bassoonist....His playing in the Weber is very fine. The recording is superb."
 
                         Fanfare Magazine

"Jeter plays with an attractive, dusky tone and a professional control of the instrument. His phrasing is simple, clear, and effective...., a good recording."

                        The New Records

"...a connoisseur of the bassoon with a cultivated tone."
 
                              Bieler Tagblatt
                                 (Switzerland)

"...certain perfection of his craft, with a clean line."
 
            Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik
                        (Mainz, Germany)

"Mr. Jeter's handling of Weber's Andante & Hungarian Rondo was notable for the clean line and attractive tone quality he applied to the Andante, and the wit with which he dispatched the Rondo. ...fresh, sympathetic, ...his playing is certainly agile, expressive and poised."
 
                    The New York Times