Have Bassoon, Will Travel
Memoir of an adventurous life in music
Through humorous anecdotes and compelling stories, trail-blazing George Zukerman recounts his life in music as concert bassoonist and impresario.
George Zukerman, known as both the Pablo Casals and the Eddie Van Halen of the bassoon, describes how his worldwide touring kindled audience awareness of this unusual instrument and freed the bassoon from penal servitude in the back ranks of the symphony orchestra. As a touring musician, he chronicles relentlessly touring Canada: travelling by float plane, ski plane, freight boat, war canoe, snowmobile, and dogsled to remote communities; plugging coins into a roadside payphone to contact promoters and driving through prairie snowstorms to reach a venue on time. As an impresario, Zukerman’ s Overture Concerts, Remote Tours Canada inspired thousands of new listeners and musicians. His tales have been enjoyed on CBC radio, and this passionate memoir will give readers further pleasure and insight into an extraordinary life.
After a short stint with the Vancouver Symphony, George Zukerman’ s career as an international soloist took off as he travelled the world. He was the first foreign bassoonist to be invited to perform as a soloist in the USSR, South Africa, and China. Simultaneously, he was arranging concert tours across Canada and negotiating with the byzantine and secretive bureaucracy of the Soviet Union to bring USSR musicians to Canada at the height of the Cold War. Even in his 90s, George was setting up concert societies in small communities, booking cross-country concert tours, and arranging concerts.
