Jane Gower

As a specialist in historical bassoon, Jane Gower performs extensively throughout Europe, the USA and Australia. She is very active in chamber music and as a soloist, in addition to appearing with the finest early music orchestras, and has a growing collection of original instruments on which she also performs.

Jane received her Bachelor of Music, with high distinction, from the Canberra School of Music in 1992. Up until this time she performed with The Sydney Symphony Orchestra, The Australian Chamber Orchestra and The Australia Ensemble. Subsequently, she was awarded a Netherlands Government Scholarship and Queens Trust grant for study of historical bassoon at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands, where she completed her performance diploma in early music in 1996, with high distinction.

In 2005 Jane was appointed principal bassoonist of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s acclaimed orchestras, the English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. She has been principal bassoonist with Jos van Immerseel’s orchestra Anima Eterna for many years, performing and recording with this orchestra a wide range of repertoire from Buxtehude and Bach to J Strauss and Tchaikovsky, and the complete symphonies of Schubert and Beethoven. Additionally she is the principal bassoonist of Concerto Copenhagen, and has appeared as Season 2008 Guest Artists principal bassoonist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Sir Simon Rattle), The Academy of Ancient Music, La Petite Bande, Les Arts Florissants, The Freiburger Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco). She returns regularly to her native Australia to perform with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Bach Ensemble and Australian Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to her diverse chamber music activities, in 1999 she founded the quartet “island”, which explores the neglected nineteenth-century repertoire for bassoon and strings. The ensemble has a recording contract with Centaur Records and has performed throughout Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Australia. In 2005 Jane was Musical Director of the Barossa Music Festival in South Australia. Current chamber music projects feature concert tours with harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen and recorder player Genevieve Lacey, and trio concerts with Mortensen and violinist John Holloway, with whom she will record for the prestigious ECM label in 2008.

As a teacher of baroque and classical bassoon, Jane has given masterclasses in Antwerp for Labo 19, in Australia for Youth Music Australia, and in St Petersburg, sponsored by the Dutch Netwerk voor Oude Muziek. She tutors at summer courses at the Wilanow Academy, Warsaw, and for the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique and the European Union Baroque Orchestra. Jane has presented regular masterclasses at the Royal College of Music, London, since 2007.

Jane is in increasing demand as a soloist on the historical bassoon. As such she toured Australia in 2000 with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and has also appeared with Concerto Copenhagen, Fundacja Concert Spirituel in Warsaw, Nova Stravaganza, Germany, Les Agrémens, Belgium, and Sirius, Australia. In 2002 Jane recorded for CD Mozart’s bassoon concerto with Anima Eterna for Zig-Zag Territoires, and she tours regularly with the piece, including in 2005 as a soloist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Her cadenzas and performance practice notes for this concerto were published in 2003 by Bärenreiter. Her latest solo recording is of three bassoon concertos of Franz Danzi, with the Orchester von Damals und Heute, Germany.