Bassoon
Nicolasa Kuster is the bassoon professor at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music (Stockton, CA), Principal Bassoon of the Stockton Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Pacific Arts Woodwind Quintet. She discovered the joys of teaching at the college level when she left a full time orchestra job to take a position as Principal Bassoon of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (KS), a job that was linked to teaching at Wichita State University School of Music and playing with the Lieurance Woodwind Quintet (2000-2008).
Before entering academia, Kuster held positions in the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and spent five seasons performing with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Spoleto, Italy. She has been a guest artist at the Anchorage Music Festival, the Ameropa Chamber Music Festival and Course (Prague, Czech Republic) the Sequoia Chamber Music Workshop in Arcata, CA, and has performed seven summers at the New Hampshire Music Festival. Her solo appearances with orchestra include a one-month solo tour of Kazakstan, televised performances in Italy and Panama, and numerous performances in the United States.
While a student at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Kuster founded the Oberlin in Panama Project, where Oberlin students and faculty travel to Panama to teach and perform for one month each year. The Oberlin in Panama Project is now in its 21st year. She served on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory for Fall of 2002. She is a Founding Director of The Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition, an international competition for young women bassoonists from the Americas or studying in the Americas.
Kuster began her musical studies as the daughter of musically minded missionaries, growing up in Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. She is a Double Degree graduate from Oberlin College and Conservatory where she studied with George Sakakeeny. She then studied with the late Bruce Grainger of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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