Concordia College Double Reed Day

Dedicate a day to double reeds on Feb. 4. All events are free and open to the public, and all ages and ability levels are welcome.

Events include a faculty recital, masterclass led by guest artists, classes/sessions by guest artists

Tentative Schedule

All events will take place on Concordia's campus in Hvidsten Hall of Music.

Guest Artists

Lindsey Wiehl

​Lindsey Wiehl performs regularly with groups around the midwest including South Dakota Symphony, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, and the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra. During her time in Indiana, she was active with Muncie Symphony Orchestra, Kokomo Park Band, Kokomo Symphony Orchestra, Marion Philharmonic Orchestra, East Central Indiana Chamber Orchestra, and Earlham Symphony Orchestra.

Among her favorite performance experiences include performing in opera orchestras at Ball State, Bay View Music Festival, and Arizona Opera.  Lindsey has also performed with other summer music festivals including the Renova Chamber Music Festival and the National Music Festival.

Wiehl is an energetic educator and aims to ignite passion in her students. Currently, Lindsey teaches composition, music production, music theory, and woodwinds at Valley City State University in Valley City, ND. She also teaches remote private lessons and reed-making lessons to bassoonists from 6th grade through college level. She formerly taught general music and wind instrument lessons at ER Hughes Elementary School, in New Hartford, NY.  She has also taught as an adjunct professor at Indiana University Kokomo, located in Kokomo, Indiana.

Jeffrey Paul

Jeffrey Paul, principal oboist with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, grew up primarily in Southern California. He was an aspiring concert pianist by the age of ten, and was awarded opportunities to perform piano concerti with the Conejo Youth Symphony and the Pepperdine University orchestra during his middle and high school years, under the tutelage of Edward Francis. His involvement as an actor/singer in community theater productions through his youth expanded his interests and since then he has become well- versed in composition, jazz/rock, improvisation, and ethnic folk musics. Jeff attended the Eastman School of Music (BM with performer’s certificate, 1999) and the University of Southern California (MM, 2003) for oboe performance. His primary teachers included Richard Killmer, David Weiss, and Allan Vogel.  He has performed as an oboe soloist with the New West Symphony, Heidelberg Castle Festival Orchestra, Conejo Concerto Orchestra and the South Dakota Symphony. 

Jeff is the pianist for South Dakota jazz group: JAS Quintet, and frequently composes for them. Jeff performs regularly on saxophone, and in addition to playing with various big bands, has made a solo appearance with the South Dakota Symphony playing John Williams' "Escapades." He can also be found playing Irish whistles and keyboards for Celtic band "Maggie in the Meantime."

Jeff, also a conductor, began his conducting career as the drum major of his elementary and junior high school marching bands, and has since renounced the mace and plumes in favor of the baton he uses to conduct the South Dakota Symphony’s Philharmonia youth orchestra. He has also conducted several pit orchestras for theatrical productions in the Sioux Falls area, and has appeared as a guest conductor for the South Dakota Symphony Chamber Orchestra and the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra.

One of Jeff’s primary interests has been the traditional folk music of various cultures, and that fascination is usually transparent in his original music. Some highlights in this area have been to work closely with The Creekside Singers, Dakota Cedar Flute player Bryan Akipa, and to improvise alongside Lebanese oud player Simon Shaheen.

In composition, Jeff has received awards from the South Dakota Music Teachers Association, and the Music Teachers Association of California, resulting in several premieres of his chamber and orchestral music. In fact his conducting debut occurred during high school, when he assembled an orchestra and conducted his original work “Fanfare and Overture” for the MTAC. Jeff has been fortunate to conduct the SDSO’s Dakota Chamber Orchestra in the premiere of his orchestral suite “Mostly Slow Music.” He has also received composition commissions from the John T. Vucurevich Foundation, the Sisseton Arts Council, the South Dakota Symphony, and the Young Artists Ensemble theater group in California. Jeff composes regularly for the Dakota Wind Quintet. A recent compositional premiere of his orchestral tone poem “Mni Wiconi” occurred in October 2018, with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, featuring Brazilian pianist Alessandra Feris.

Jeff is honored to have collaborated with Native Lakota and Dakota musicians. The results of such collaborations were to compose several pieces of music for orchestra and/or wind quintet with Native musicians, and to teach at the SDSO Lakota Composition Academies. One composition featured The Creekside Singers from Pine Ridge, SD, and another was a concerto featuring Bryan Akipa, from Sisseton, on his self-made cedar flutes. Jeff was honored to be one of four recipients of the inaugural Ford Musician's Award from the League of American Orchestras in 2016 primarily for his work in this project.

No stranger to the recording studio, Jeff has recorded for various projects, including a Warner Bros. film scoring session, a hip-hop orchestra, jazz/rock/fusion bands, vocalist Jami Lynn, and a spattering of independent short films.

Jeff is also the proud father of three beautiful and talented children.

Event Hosts

Kelley Tracz, Oboe

Dr. Kelley Tracz is an oboist currently based in Minneapolis and is very active as both a performer and educator in Minnesota and beyond. She has performed with numerous orchestras across the country, including multiple appearances with the New World Symphony, Brevard Music Center Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Ohio Light Opera Orchestra, Greensboro Symphony, Quad City Symphony, Temple Symphony Orchestra, Central Texas Philharmonic, Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, Brazos Valley Symphony, Topeka Ballet Orchestra, and more. She has received fellowships to Hidden Valley Music Festival, Brevard Music Festival, Bay View Music Festival, and the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy. She has been a featured soloist with the UNC Greensboro University Band, Austin Symphonic Band, Kansas State University Wind Ensemble, Packard Wind Band, and is also a past winner of the Midwest Double Reed Society Young Artist Competition.

As a passionate and dedicated educator, Tracz has given masterclasses and served as a clinician to young oboists and fellow music educators in Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas. Her students have advanced to region, area, and all-state ensembles in Texas, and have also been accepted into various schools of music across the country, including The Eastman School of Music, UT Austin, UMKC Conservatory, and Southern Methodist University. She has served as a faculty artist for the national double reed camp, Bocal Majority, and was the premier instructor for the 2017 camp in Austin, Texas. She was the oboe instructor at Camp Bernstein of Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, for three consecutive seasons and has served as the oboe instructor for the Kansas State University Music Camp for seven seasons. 

Tracz received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Oboe Performance and Post Baccalaureate Certificate in Ethnomusicology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During her time at UNCG, she studied with Dr. Ashley Barret and served as the teaching assistant for the Oboe Studio. She also served as a teaching assistant for the Ethnomusicology Department. She holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, where she was a Berneking Fellow, serving as rotating principal oboist of many of the top ensembles in the School of Music, and was a member of the school’s graduate woodwind quintet. Here she studied with Principal Oboe of the Minnesota Orchestra, John Snow. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree at Kansas State University, studying with Nora Lewis. She has also studied extensively with Andrew Parker.

Outside of music, Tracz enjoys riding her Liv Avail road bike all over the Twin Cities, whipping up tasty plant-based meals, and hanging out with her number one pal and furry companion, Freddie the cat.

Russell Peterson is associate professor of saxophone, bassoon, and jazz studies at Concordia College. An accomplished bassoonist, composer, and classical/jazz saxophonist, Russell is the winner of several prizes, including the top prize at the 1995 International Geneva Saxophone Concours (Switzerland), and first place winner at the 1995 MTNA National Music competition in both woodwinds and chamber music.  He holds degrees from Youngstown State University (Ohio), Le Conservatoire de Bordeaux (France), and Bowling Green State University (Ohio).  He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in the United States as well as Europe, including the Dana Chamber Orchestra, (USA), Concordia Orchestra, (USA), Bowling Green Philharmonic, (USA), L'Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, (Switzerland), Collegium Musicum, Basel (Switzerland), the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra (USA), the Orchestra Conservatorio Superior De Musica del Liceu (Spain), the Western New York Chamber Orchestra (USA), and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (Russia).

As an orchestral musician, he has served as bassoonist with several symphony orchestras and is currently principal bassoonist with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony. An active chamber musician, he has performed extensively throughout Europe and the United States with the Transcontinental Saxophone Quartet, the Hard-Bop Saxophone Quartet, The Post-Traumatic Funk Syndrome, and as bassoonist with the Concordia Wind Quintet.

In addition to his appointment at Concordia, he has also served on the faculty at Youngstown State University (Ohio), The University of Toledo (Ohio), Interlochen Summer Arts Academy, and the International Music Camp.