“From her seat as associate principal oboe with New York Philharmonic for the last 31 years, Sherry Sylar has seen the world, met heads of state, played some of the world’s best music in some of the best venues and done things beyond her wildest imagination,” writes Barry Courter in Tuesday’s (3/29) Times Free Press (Chattanooga, TN). “And it all happened because back at [Chattanooga’s] Northside Junior High School in the mid-’60s she thought handmaking her own oboe reeds would be cool…. Sylar’s uncle, Jack Stoker, served as president of the Chattanooga Symphony at one time. Sylar … was in [Chattanooga] to decompress after a busy year that saw her handle her regular job with the Philharmonic, teach in New York, play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as guest principal oboe and, on March 12-13, perform a concerto [by Pablo Furman] written specifically for her” with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. At the Philharmonic, Sylar “fills in on the slightly larger oboe d’amore and the English horn, as well as stepping in as the principal oboe.… She likens her role to that of a relief pitcher who never knows when the call from the bench will come, so she must be ready.”
Posted March 30, 2016
