Biography
Ray Still, the first oboist of the Chicago Symphony for forty years, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in orchestral, solo, and chamber music. He has played under almost all the majors conductors of the last half of the 20th century and has recorded much of the oboe solo repertoire with such artists as the Fine Arts Quartet, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell, and Kathleen Battle. The many students he has taught in graduate and undergraduate programs and international clinics and master classes now staff symphonies and universities around the world. Since retirement, he has toured in Europe, Ireland, Canada and Japan, taught at Northwestern and the University of Maryland, and is now engaged in writing a book on playing the oboe, which will make available to many the ideas he has developed over 60 years. His distinctive tone and musical style have influenced and inspired oboists throughout the world.
Ray Still taught at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore (1949-53), Roosevelt University in Chicago (1954-1957), and for 43 years as professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
He and his wife of 66 years, Mary Brock of Kansas City MO, have four children, six grandchildren and a great grand child, now two years old.
A devotee of American Jazz, especially that of the 1920’s through the 1950’s, Still has an extensive record collection. His particular heroes in this field are Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, and Billie Holiday.
He is also a particular lover of vocal music and artists, and lists among his idols Fritz Wunderlich, Elly Ameling, Kiri Te Kanawa, Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Jesse Norman, Jorma Hyninen, Bryn Terfel and Tom Krause. His idea of a musician's heaven is to be able to play all the Bach Cantatas and the great Choral works, then the accompaniments to Mozart Concerti and Operas as well as all the Serenades and Divertimenti and Symphonies of Haydn and Mozart.
Besides his teaching at Northwestern University, he is engaged quite often in conducting master classes and coaching wind groups around the world. He is at present working on an extensive instruction book for the oboe which will be published on this website.
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