“Save the Bassoon” is the cry from musicians in the Netherlands. That is also the name of their project, which aims to revive the instrument’s popularity and inspire more young people to learn it.
The bassoon, also known as fagot, is a woodwind classical music instrument, known for its deep but warm tenor and bass voice. The bassoon’s relatives in the double reed family are the oboe and the contrabassoon.
The campaign, initiated last January by the Holland Festival, is based on long years of worrisome observation that fewer children are taking up certain instruments. Currently conservatories and professional orchestras are not getting enough applicants, and, as a result, a vast repertoire of Western classical and contemporary music may not be able to be performed anymore.
Although the project has no hard data, based on the number of applications for music lessons and at conservatories, the project founders see a general trend of fewer children learning any instruments at all, as Jochem Valkenburg, music and music theater program manager of the Holland Festival, wrote in an email.
“Even if they choose to play an instrument, it is often violin, piano, or flute—instruments that have stars like Janine Jansen, Sarah Chang, and Lang Lang attached to them. There is no such star for the bassoon or the trombone,” he said.
