Emory Bassoon Day 2025

Ann Shoemaker, bassoonist, is highly regarded as a music educator, soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Bassoon and Coordinator of Woodwinds at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and has been on the faculties of Furman University, Davidson College, and the North Carolina School of the Arts. Her students have found continued success in professional orchestras, military bands, as freelance musicians, educators, and music administrators. Shoemaker is currently the principal bassoonist with Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and Waco Symphony Orchestra. She frequently performs guest solo recitals across the country and has performed internationally in The Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and Venezuela. A recipient of the Hayes Fellowship, Dr. Shoemaker completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Furman University and a Master of Music degree from Yale School of Music, where she was awarded the Nyfenger Award for Outstanding Woodwind Performance. Dr. Shoemaker is a Fox Bassoon performing artist.

Dr. Shelly Unger
Founding director of Summer Bassoon Extravaganza, Shelly Unger is an active bassoonist and contrabassoonist as well as an artist affiliate bassoon instructor at Emory University. Dr. Unger has played throughout metro Atlanta, with the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, in regional orchestras throughout the Southeast, and as a substitute with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She has given numerous solo and collaborative recitals, including a performance of Bernard Garfield’s second quartet at the International Double Reed Society Conference shortly after its 2006 world premiere in Philadelphia. In 2004-05, she was visiting professor of bassoon at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she played with the Missouri Quintet and gave multiple solo performances. She maintains a large private studio.

Dr. Unger’s students have won numerous awards and scholarships, including the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, the Atlanta Federation of Musicians Scholarship Competition and numerous awards in the Music Teachers National Association Competition. Many of her students make in Honor Band and All State. You will find her students playing in ASYO, EYSO, AYWS, and other extra-musical ensembles in metro Atlanta. Her major teachers include: Sidney Rosenberg, Bernard Garfield, Ben Kamins, Eric Arbiter, and Carl Nitchie. She earned a BM from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, a MM from Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and a DMA from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia. In addition, she did post-graduate work at Temple University. She has performed in Seoul, Republic of South Korea, Lithuania, Taiwan and Israel. In 2006 she established Emory Bassoon Day, an annual event that continues a tradition of bringing world class bassoonists and some of the most sought-after bassoon pedagogues to Atlanta. She also served as bassoon faculty and director of the IDRS Teen Camp: Double Reeds Rock! at its 2016 Conference.

Anthony Georgeson
Anthony Georgeson joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Bassoonist in the fall of 2017. Prior to that, he was principal bassoonist of The Florida Orchestra from 2007-17, a member of the New World Symphony and acting principal bassoonist of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

He has also performed with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Sarasota Orchestra, Classical Tahoe, Mainly Mozart Music Festival, Strings Music Festival, and both as guest assistant principal and second bassoonist with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, Carnegie Hall, Blossom Music Festival, and throughout Europe. As part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2014 Brahms Cycle recording project he, as guest second bassoonist, recorded Brahms’s Symphonies 1-3 to DVD/BluRay from the BBC PROMS and the Musikverein in Vienna.

Georgeson earned his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, studying with Whitney Crockett, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison as a student of Kenneth Moses. He began studying the bassoon with Cynthia Cameron-Fix, has had further studies with John Clouser in performance and reed-making, and counts Bernard Garfield as a strong musical influence. Mr. Georgeson plays on pre-war Heckel Bassoon #7507 made in Biebrich (Wiesbaden), Germany in 1934.

Georgeson made his solo debut at the age of 17 performing Weber’s Bassoon Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and has been a soloist with The Florida Orchestra, the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the UW Symphony Orchestra, and the Concord Chamber Orchestra performing the bassoon concerti of Mozart, Zwilich, and Weber. With a strong family background and commitment to education, he also maintains a private teaching studio and is on faculty as Artist Affiliate in Bassoon at Emory University.

EMORY BASSOON DAY 2025 SCHEDULE

☆ 9 a.m. Welcome followed by Masterclass

▪︎ break

☆ 10:30 Bassoon Choir rehearsal

☆ noon lunch/exhibits

☆ 1 p.m. mini recital

▪︎ break

☆ 2 p.m. Masterclass

• break

☆ 3:30 p.m. Bassoon Choir rehearsal

• Group picture

☆ 4:30 p.m. Performance for parents

*Schedule Subject to Change

Emory has a tradition of bringing world-class bassoonists to campus for a day of masterclasses, performances, and chamber music to enrich the musical life of the university and region. Guest artists have included: Sue Heineman (principal bassoon, National Symphony Orchestra), Richard Svoboda (principal bassoon, Boston Symphony Orchestra), Grammy Award winning bassoonist Frank Morelli (Yale/SUNY Stony Brook), Bill Ludwig (Indiana University), internationally acclaimed soloist Martin Kuuskmann, Kristin Wolfe-Jensen (University of Texas) and others.

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Host or Publisher Shelly Unger, Emory University