Robert Bloom

Robert Bloom (May 3, 1908 – February 13, 1994) was an oboist with an orchestral and solo career, a composer and arranger contributing to the oboe repertory, and a teacher of several successful oboists.[1] Bloom is considered seminal in the development of an American school of oboe playing.[2]

At the Curtis Institute of Music Bloom was a pupil of Marcel Tabuteau for three years.[2] In the 1930s he played English horn in the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and first oboe in the Rochester Philharmonic under José Iturbi.[2] He was the principal oboe in Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1943.[3] Bloom plays on recordings by the Columbia Symphony and the RCA Symphony.[2]

In 1946 Bloom was one of the founding members of the Bach Aria Group, with which he played until 1980.[1][2] Recordings by the Bach Aria Group featuring Bloom started appearing from the late 1940s.[4] Bloom transcribed and elaborated 18th-century masterworks for the oboe.[5] His own compositions include a Sonatina for oboe and piano.[1]

Bloom was a professor at Yale and Juilliard.[1] His pupils include William Bennett,[6] Bill Douglas,[7] Tim Hurtz,[8] Richard Killmer,[9] Bert Lucarelli,[10] Ray Still,[10][11] Allan Vogel,[10] Stephen Taylor, and Richard Woodhams,[2] In the spring of 1988, friends, colleagues, and former pupils gathered in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York for an 80th-birthday tribute.[2]

A few years after Bloom's death in 1994,[12] his widow, Sara Lambert Bloom, published The Robert Bloom Collection, scores and parts to his 21 editions of 18th-century masterworks, 10 transcriptions, and 10 compositions.[13] The Art of Robert Bloom, a 7-CD set of live performances of concertos, chamber music, and Bach arias performed by Bloom over his 60-year career was released in 2001 on Boston Records label.[14]

Bloom's daughter, Kath Bloom is a singer-songwriter and music therapist based in Litchfield, CT.[15]