Stephen Hammer enjoys an eclectic musical life playing and teaching oboes and recorders of all periods and is active as an instrument-maker and music administrator. He is especially interested in the musical rhetoric of the Baroque period, as related to vocal texts and classical rhetorical figures.
After performing as soloist and principal oboist with leading ensembles in the eastern US for more than forty years, Stephen Hammer relocated to Southern California in 2016, where he plays with Musica Angelica, Tesserae Baroque, LA Bach, the American Bach Soloists, and the Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar among other enterprises. He also serves as principal oboist of the Clarion Music Society in New York, artistic director of the Blue Hill Bach festival in Maine, principal recorder of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and regular participant at the Aston Magna festival in Massachusetts. He has been a featured soloist with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Bach Ensemble, Handel and Haydn Society, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, and the Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Bruges, Regensburg, City of London, and BBC Proms festivals. His more than 200 recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral music appear on Decca L’Oiseau-lyre and other labels, he has taught at Bard College, the Longy School of Music, and Indiana University, and he collaborates with the instrument-maker Joel Robinson in building replicas of historical oboes.
Please click to view the Performing, Teaching, Other Activities, and Discography pages.
If you are interested in Baroque oboes and such, please visit hautboy.org